Oops II, Bailey with Milk, Bailey Townley, 2019, 07-29-2019LB, Limited Edition of 5 Artwork

For me, a strong image offers a vision beyond the surface. It has a multi-dimensionality that offers depth and richness; such images can “tell” different stories to different people. With my work, these are never linear stories. Rather, they are subterranean and unconscious, like wordless shards that are the remains of dreams upon awakening. I view myself primarily as an alchemist. The mundane surface of things interests me as fodder, as a means or lever, for revealing the deeper, inner energy of that which holds my emotional interest. Manipulation allows me ready access to the subject’s hidden aspects. The act is a partial disrobing; it is a process only the audience may complete. I am a primitive hunter-gatherer rather than a modern urban agrarian. My process depends on engaging two polar opposites: intent and openness. The result is a channeling of energies beyond myself. I become a conductor of energy, like a wire conducting electricity or a lens conducting light. Mystics, and now even String Theory scientists, describe our world as having eleven dimensions. I feel that I explore some portion of these unnamed dimensions with my art. In each of my photographs I have used, and deliberately misused, in-camera and/or post-production manipulation. With digital photography I shoot promiscuously and playfully, but with a constancy of intent and openness. I expect surprise and serendipity. Post-production is much the same, with play, serendipity, surprise, intent and openness dominating the process. At every step of the way I perceive the involvement of energies beyond myself. Due to a lack of extensive planning and my habit of deliberately keeping my intentions vague, my finished photographs feel more like found artifacts than personally crafted works of art. Part of me is a mere witness to this mysterious process. Like a child who has found baubles at the seashore, I have the urge to share my “discoveries.” In my youth I imagined pursuing the arts as a hobby and working as a scientist. I imagined myself exploring frontiers as an exo-geologist, fathoming the structure of planets other than Earth. During my adolescence, however, I discovered the vast frontier of inner space and realized that my frontier lay in the direction of alchemy, the unconscious and art. I was born in Dubuque, Iowa and spent the bulk of my life in the far suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. I now reside in western North Carolina.