Photographic Images by Tim Forcade - Pricing and Size Information
Statement
Simply put, my work has focused on creating imagery with whatever I can get my hands on. My ambition has been to fully explore and push familiar media into unfamiliar territory, at times happily loosing myself in the process.
My story revolves around three core artistic passions – light, technology, and abstraction. Decades ago, I painted compulsively. I was possessed by its process and immediacy. Then circumstance intervened and introduced me to light. Light’s autonomy and purity took hold, and I realized that paint could not support what I aspired to do. Painting began to take on a different meaning.
My first brush with technology occurred at 12 years of age as I was first learning to oil paint. I read about Hubert Van Eyck’s technical breakthroughs in oil painting and was hooked by the mix of art and technology.
This interest/obsession has at times isolated me from other artists, art collectors, and even art itself. However, it steered me toward computer graphics in the mid 1980’s and into creating all manner of still and moving imagery. Various side trips furthered my education with technology. Among them was a 13-year stint as a contributing editor writing magazine articles and books on the techniques of 3d modeling, rendering and animation. I also became involved in software development itself as I helped define the workings of 3d graphics programs. Given these experiences, tech is in my DNA.
Then there is abstraction, a process of moving the known into the unknown and calling to question the world identity of the familiar. There’s also the way one element may refer to or stand-in for another. I loved how the use of shadow and light in photography for instance, could completely transform common objects into unidentifiable forms, leaving the viewer to question, “what am I seeing?” Of course, there’s the process of working non-objectively without visual references of any kind and being guided by intuition, seeing the unimaginable appear as you work. I wondered how abstract imagery could incite strong emotions. What is that experience evoking? Is it channeling some primordial language, or perhaps revealing a genuine experience of the moment?
Today I remain as immersed in all this as ever. The studio is irresistible. I am absorbed in a constant sequence of breakthroughs leading me deeper into light’s purity, technology’s limitless potential, and abstraction’s mystery.
BIO
Tim Forcade is a multimedia artist employing painting, theatrical/studio lighting, electronic systems, video and photography to create imagery inspired by light in all its forms. He has combined his education in drawing and painting (BFA 1970) with ongoing research and experiments with technology-based media. His work has been published, collected and exhibited nationally and internationally.
His obsession with art and technology began in the 1960’s. At that time Tim began work with projected light using paint, liquids, various materials and motors producing environmental stage effects for live performances across the midwest and Canada. He also produced a series of photographs using theatrical stroboscopic lights and choreography to create imagery using the figure as a point of departure toward abstract photography. Throughout the 70s and 80s, via independent trial and error, he designed and built his Light Machine Series — interactive electronic devices he used to transform sound into colored light compositions for installations, photography and video.
During the 80s and 90s Tim participated in the emergence and evolution of 2D and 3D computer graphics as an artist, beta site, author, and development team member. He has taught and lectured extensively at various conferences and colleges including SIGGRAPH, the University of Washington, the University of Kansas and Alberta College of Art.
His more recent work leverages his decades of experience as a professional photographer and artist skilled in computational photography and digital image processing. For the last 15 years his large photographic works on paper and fabric have been based on locating or building subjects that he asserts “affect light without necessarily being delineated by it.” This recent work as been referred to as color field photography and a true synthesis between painting and photography.
His current work with 3D computer graphics has transported his image making from cameras and studio still life sets into virtual space and as he puts it,“beyond physicality and its limitations and toward a more perfect encounter with the essence of light.”
For more information contact Tim at 785.843.1605 or email him — tim@forcadeimages.com. A blog about Tim's new work and upcoming exhibits is available via Tim@Facebook.