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One way or another, we’ve all been transformed by the African-American legacy. In this body of work I seek to both celebrate the colorful personalities and diverse richness of the African-American community but to also to create threads to the origins that tie us all together. Of course we know now that, in a purely biological sense, we are all Africans and I believe it is important to remember that the particular way sunlight reflects off the pigments of the skin is governed by the physics of light, not by the social niches we have carved out over the centuries. Choosing subjects for the exhibit was both easy and difficult. Easy because there are so many fantastic characters to chose from in every walk of life; difficult because it’s hard to choose from so many. So as with all my work there is a certain arbitrariness to the selections and nothing should be read into the omissions other than there is only so much time and so much space within which to work. My artistic process is somewhat unique, both in the final result and the manner in which I get there. The same as any other artist, I might work from a live model or a photo or the imagination to create what I call the alpha, which is my starter material. From the alpha, I have developed a proprietary process using my own software to create variations, literal transformations, that may or may not significantly resemble the original. Often these works will involve mixing in complex geometrical patterns and textures as well as distortions and color variations on the original. Each of these is of my own design and controlled by a complex process. Sometimes, because the variations themselves are quite interesting, I will display them in groups so the viewer is allowed in on the exploration process. Other works are like single jewels that are discovered within the many variations, then crafted and polished into an art object and the variations may even be discarded. My wife, Valeriya Tuz, is instrumental in the final transformation from an ephemeral digital file to a real-world art object. Most works are printed with archival inks onto canvas and then coated and given light or heavy additional applications of acrylic, gilding and other enhancements that bring out the color and material reality of the work. Because the nature of the form is purely mathematical, they can actually be executed at any size with no loss of quality. They are infinitely scalable. I sometimes refer to this as "grand art" because it would need to be printed hundreds of feet across to fully appreciate the many levels of intentional artistic detail that exist in the original. Tracy Mac |