~ “Lahary Pittman Artist Statement” ~

As a result of the manifold mediums I work in, my artistic persona is stylistically nonconformist. My visual art appetite is a melange of celluloid photographs, pastels and film/video. My contemporary photography will psychologically register with the viewer according to whether B&W or color film is my source, as well as their unconscious optical interaction with my emotional intent. Likewise a counterpoint exists in what appears as an academically derived sophistication of fine photographs vs. the innocence & naïveté of my folk art pastels and drawings.

The film & video sensibilities I employ simultaneously embody American story structure while deconstructed in the classically abstract manner of European cinema. Coupled with a pre-occupation for thematic drive, my aesthetic priorities have led to four completed bodies of work, all of which share the common traits of being depopulated & faithful to the natural world, culminating in series’ from the South of France, Manhattan’s Lower East Side, the Western Catskill mountains, Flanders & London.

A recurring phenomena found in my work, as an essentially self-taught artist, is that despite the absence of any formal influence by artists of previous era’s, I have nonetheless discovered limited after-the-fact-affinities with specific movements and artists. In both realms I was thoroughly without introduction or consciousness concerning such entities until after establishing my own output. As a draughtsman and pastelist I have no discernible identification with peers or predecessors. And as opposed to being inspired by photographers, my historical reference has always been cinematographers. While craftsman from neither idiom are responsible for influencing my work, I did encounter ‘after the fact affinities’ with cinematographers James Wong Howe, Massimo Vitali and Christopher Doyle.

In precisely the same manner – I only retroactively became aware of the two American art movements that unexpectedly resonate with my work to date; the Regionalists & the Hudson River School. Although I was born & raised in Kansas City, John Steuart Curry of Kansas, Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri & Grant Wood of Iowa had never been on my radar. Thus it was in hind-sight that I realized I was inadvertently practicing an international variant of Regionalism. A tradition I later found was shared by Hudson River School artists John Kensett and Thomas Cole in their decisions to paint both the Hudson and the Thames.

While many understand the close association of the Hudson River School to the Catskill mountains of upstate New York, authors and historians do not appear to distinguish the traits of Americana reflected in the portion of the Catskills contiguous to the Hudson River compared to that of the Western Catskills, arguably the more austere or primordial. The moody
romanticism, historical significance and vernacular attributes of all my locales have served as the real inertia for my attempts to liberate their elements and artistically carbon-date the emblems of both nature & global society.

“Serena’s Shop on the Canal” Bruges, Belgium ~ Lahary (Artists Rights Society, NY)

SHOP IN BRUGES, BELGIUM
ASPHERICAL-CANAL-SHOP-III

“Water Lily Lagoon” (c) Lahary, (Artists Rights Society, New York) , Warmtone Silver Gelatin Print

“Snowflakes On Rockline” (c) Lahary, 35mm/Silver Gelatin Print

“Snowflakes On Rockline” (c) Lahary.

My studio (where I live now) is in the wilderness. It’s 10 degrees below zero. The austere, primitive mountain environment is cold and clean. This is the view from my kitchen window..and the image was captured in 35mm film on the fly from my deck.

“The Late Show” (c) Lahary; Exhibiting in “Kinetic” 3/23 to 5/4 via Dutchess Cty Arts Association, Poughkeepsie, NY

THE LATE SHOW (c) LAHARY

“Open All Nite” 2006 (c) Lahary; Silver Gelatin Print; The Village, NYC

“Open All Night” 2006 (c) Lahary.

$old to a collector in Paris..Shot in the East Village of downtown New York City near where I lived. Part of my ‘Shifting Boundaries of Manhattan’s Lower East Side’ Series.

$old @ auction; “Hackney Carriages” London, (c) Lahary Pittman

“Hackney Carriages” London, 2010; (c) Lahary

In London a hackney or hackney carriage (also called a black cab, hack or London taxi) is a carriage or automobile for hire. This bold B&W photograph was taken at the Liverpool St. “London Underground” station merely one block from certain set locations for both “Match Point” by Woody Allen and “Basic Instinct 2”. In the United Kingdom, the name hackney carriage refers to a taxicab licensed by the Public Carriage Office in Greater London. In the United States, the police department of the city of Boston has a Hackney Carriage Unit, analogous to taxicab regulators in other cities, that issues Hackney Carriage medallions to its operators. Thus the origin of the New York colloquial term “hack” (taxi or taxi-driver), “hackstand” (taxi stand), and “hack license” (taxi license) are derived from “hackney carriage”.

The name ‘hackney’ was once thought to be an anglicized derivative of French haquenée—a horse of medium size recommended for lady riders; however, current opinion is that it is derived from the village name Hackney (now part of London). The first documented ‘hackney coach’—the forerunner of the more generic ‘hackney carriage’—operated in London in 1621. Astoundingly, “electric hackney carriages” appeared even before the introduction of the internal combustion engine to vehicles for hire in 1901..pre-dating recent automobile innovations such as the Chevrolet Volt, Toyota Prius etc. by 110 years!