INDUSTRY OF LIGHT

William Hundley is a painter by training and Stacey Farrar is a fine art photographer. Together as INDUSTRY OF LIGHT they have focused their attention on the process of photography, achieving "painterly" photographs by staging photo-sessions with various models, colored lights, strobes, and lots of spontaneous action. The results are exquisite photographs that allude to the paintings of Francis Bacon (hence the title of the show) while achieving an entirely unique visual presence. Bared teeth and silent screams suggest a terror which is both augmented and mitigated by the painterly light that emanates from each image.

It started nearly a year ago when Hundley (working as Billy Duchamp) decided to stage spontaneous photo-shoots with himself as subject. The initial images were very straight forward take-offs on Francis Bacon's seated figures with contorted faces; this effect easily achieved with slow shutter speeds and controlled motion by the subject. Soon, however, he began collaborating with his college buddy Farrar. It was after the two began collaborating that the shooting became much more deliberate and organized.

Concentrating on the effects of motion and light, Hundley and Farrar increasingly began using models (friends of theirs) working with specific direction but allowed the freedom to be expressive. Literally hundreds of photos were taken, each roll of processed images providing clues as to how the strobes, lasers, or colored lights might be more effectively manipulated to achieve desired results during future sessions. Despite the enormityof chance or random events using this process with so many moving variables, over time Hundley and Farrar began to master the use of the action, lights, camera, and film.

The photographs in this exhibition are by and large "straight prints," most of them printed directly from the negatives. Although some digital technology has been used to produce some of the prints in the exhibition; no actual digital manipulation has been used to produce the visual results on display. The beautifully achieved abstraction and painterly effects are a testament to the visual skills of Hundley and Farrar in staging and capturing shots and finally in selecting images for printing.