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The Melding in the Mind's Eye For Polish-born photographer Ryszard Horowitz, the arrival of digital technology simply added yet another tool to his palette. Having created his multi-image mindscapes since the early 1960s using masking techniques and working "within the camera," Horowitz then embraced digital imagery in the 1980s as a natural extension which allows for more seamless, unified compositions. "People find it difficult to distinguish between my digitally altered work and traditional work," he says. "When I am published, editors often select pictures that are not digital as examples of digital photography. It's kind of amusing." Horowitz, who primarily works in commercial photography, has grown used to being misunderstand. In an era when pasting images together on a computer screen has become commonplace, he stands as a sort of pioneer of a dubious territory. Having merged photography with the personal expressiveness of artists he studied in art school, he long ago raised eyebrows in the photographic art world. "I use photography as a creative medium, to really explore my inner thoughts, my ideas," he says, "I was always interested in making pictures, creating situations, anecdotes, and environments, as opposed to just capturing reality. For many years I was heavily criticized as not being a purist, not really sticking to what photography was 'meant to be.' But now with all this craze toward the land of digital technology, everybody is doing it-regardless of whether there is need or understanding or whether there's any sense behind their effort," he says, with a laugh that evinces both amusement and exasperation. Born in Krakow, Poland, in 1939, Horowitz spent his first five years in German concertration camos; he is one of the youngest known survivors of Auschwitz. His life was dramatized along with that of his family in Steven Spielberg's Schinlder's List. Having appeared as one of the survivors at the end of the movie, he has been called upon recently to revisit his childhood. He still addresses the sublect warily. "We're all results of our own bag, our own backguound," he says. "People are desperately trying to draw parallels between my childhood and what I do. I stopped trying to point out to them that there is no relationship whatsoever." he says, laughing. "But see, I never really built my life based on this experience, and I never used it consciously in any way. Every once in awhile things tend to slip out...but I am much more, you know, optimistic, and I hope I have a sence of humor. I like my work to project that." "I'm thankful that this whole
wave of returning to the past became evident later in my life,
instead of when I was a teenager or in my earlier years, because
it could have been extremely distracting," he says, "It
can really drag you--it's so big, and so bad, and so traumatic
and paintful. So I managed, luckily, to block it for most of
my life. |
