“Untitled” 2013, (hand)
Archival ink on Arches 100% cotton rag
27.94 cm x 21.59 cm (11 in x 8.5 in)
Signed and framed behind glass
38.74 cm x 29.85 cm (15.25 x 11.75 in)
Edition of 10

Current Exhibition

Fallout Observations

Formal photographic image invention and notions of permanence

Artist statement, fall 2015
 
“Several themes recur over time in my work. In this case it is the notion of permanence. It is the nature of things to have relative life spans, minuscule to seemingly unaffected by the effects of time.

Events in any context, environment, climatic, can accelerate or restrain those understandable durations of being.

“Untitled” 2013, (eyelashes)
Archival ink on Arches 100% cotton rag
27.94 cm x 21.59 cm (11 in x 8.5 in)
Signed and framed behind glass
38.74 cm x 29.85 cm (15.25 x 11.75 in)
Edition of 10

In this particular group of images, I was fixed on my childhood fear of nuclear exchanges between the then USSR and the US. As a child I was taught to fear this possible event. My uncle built a fallout shelter. We were shown films and photographs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, everything burnt or melted, instantly or perhaps more painfully, over time.

“Untitled” 2013, (coke)
Archival ink on Arches 100% cotton rag
27.94 cm x 21.59 cm (11 in x 8.5 in)
Signed and framed behind glass
38.74 cm x 29.85 cm (15.25 x 11.75 in)
Edition of 10

Recent media chatter of nuclear aggression has stirred up the muck of those days, as it metaphorically fits into a more common sense of “general loss”.

My interest lies also in a notion of formal invention, which is to say I am not necessarily content with the prescriptive photographic form, the “straight” photograph as it has been called. To consider that every new group of work deserves consideration also to the process of generating the image interests me greatly.

“Untitled” 2013, (rose)
Archival ink on Arches 100% cotton rag
27.94 cm x 21.59 cm (11 in x 8.5 in)
Signed and framed behind glass
38.74 cm x 29.85 cm (15.25 x 11.75 in)
Edition of 10

My current process involves making a traditional ink jet print, using a solvent in a controlled way to “dissolve” the image. This is dried, scanned, and then reworked in the computer to correct artifacts, adjust color etc., as is common practice in most photo image making these days.

“Untitled” 2013, (spike)
Archival ink on Arches 100% cotton rag
27.94 cm x 21.59 cm (11 in x 8.5 in)
Signed and framed behind glass
38.74 cm x 29.85 cm (15.25 x 11.75 in)
Edition of 10

This work is to keep in the present that beauty can exist when you need it to, that there is a way to reckon with difficulties that occur, to remind oneself of some other context, or time, and somehow feel that the resonance of all things might just be infinite.
 

“Untitled” 2013, (faded)
Archival ink on Arches 100% cotton rag
27.94 cm x 21.59 cm (11 in x 8.5 in)
Signed and framed behind glass
38.74 cm x 29.85 cm (15.25 x 11.75 in)
Edition of 10

Biography

John J. Carlano runs a commercial photography studio located in The Crane Arts Building in Philadelphia.

Johns client list is diverse ranging from art-based to corporate-based interests, from product shooting for Motorola, or RCA , to portraits for the various schools at The University of Pennsylvania, or diverse Magazine assignments, or shooting tequila production in Mexico for The Siembra Azul Corporation.

Johns primary interest remains in a life long investigation of a fine art based image making, changing materials and content whenever it seems appropriate. For 20 years John worked with chemically altering silver prints to achieve patinas beyond toning, manifested in portraits and still lives and landscapes.

Currently John is discovering how digital technologies can address similar visual concerns in a way that is less toxic to the environment and his own body, photographing “photographs” of the nude, and manipulating the image in multiple ways. Questions are asked about what is new and what is historic and what is photographic.

John Carlano’s photographs have been shown nationally and internationally since 1978.
 

John Carlano Photography ➤