Micheal Katz

My artwork reflects my interest in representational images and how their meaning and making relate to first hand experience. Much of what we know about the world we learned from photographs. We generally equate photographs with reality because they portray nameable persons, places and things. They present an event at a particular place, which happened sometime in the immediate or distant past, and as it appeared during the amount of time it took to record the visual elements that constitute the image. We are so completely familiar with the visual characteristics of photographs that they become transparent to us. Photographs seem to represent actual experience so faithfully that we have come to believe that a photograph provides absolute documentary proof in spite of the fact that we know better. Many interesting issues and questions arise from this situation. 

The art I make comes from the questions I have about visual reproductions of reality and the generalized assumptions we have about the appearance of the world of nameable things. All of my works begin with a photograph that I have taken which activates my observation, initiates questions and provokes ideas. Using the visual vocabulary of photographic imagery, I rely on my traditional drawing and painting skills and digital media skills to develop the piece. As with any representational image, seeing reproductions of my work is a different experience than seeing the work itself.