A Tale of Two Cities (R-14;Y+102;G+7;C+77;B+85;M-26) #1/15 Photograph - Limited Edition of 15

David believes that representation cannot be separated from craft. That the idea for a painting isn't a painting. Skills are improved through repetition. Practice learned as a means to a fixed end will hamper creativity. Repetitiveness can be of the evolving kind with each input-output feedback loop maturing at each cycle, the post- influencing the pre- and so on. Stored memories are retrieved. Their retrieval will in turn influence the artist who will impart that change on the next one, ad infinitum. Very quickly, the acts of photographing and editing; “the craft”; will modify an artist’s understanding and memory of the subject. Art is bias and processes are biased. Reality is a fluid concept when in the hands of a capable craftsman. David Hartwell is a Pasadena-based photographer. A British citizen, he was born and raised in French speaking Switzerland. David was formally trained as a photographer taking workshops given by such luminaries as Guy Le Querrec, Luc Chessex and Raymond Depardon before obtaining his BFA in 1991 from Art Center College of Design (Europe). He emigrated to the United States in 1992 where he cut his teeth working for pioneers of the burgeoning multimedia industry. He spent the next twenty-five years developing technical and historical content for broadcasting, film and new media. In his art, he uses technology and the technical skills he acquired in the commercial field to blur the lines between the world described by science, the world as it appears to us, and the world as we would like it to be. His photographs are constructions both in their making and figuratively. They challenge the audience to reevaluate their appreciation about how craft differs from art, if at all. His photography and artwork have shown at the National Gallery of the Cayman Islands, National Museum of China Beijing, Wende Museum of The Cold War in Culver City, WUHO Gallery in Hollywood, Neutra VDL Studio and Residences in Silver Lake Los Angeles, Louis Poulsen showroom and gallery Los Angeles, Palm Springs Art Museum. In 2019, David and fellow artist Bill Ferehawk were commissioned a series of large botanical portraits by the Cayman National Gallery. Bringing their portable studio to the mangrove, they captured the native and endemic plants of the archipelago in their most intimate settings. Homegrown was on display at the museum in George Town, 21 Jan – 12 Apr 2021. The series was acquired by the Museum as part of their National Collection.