Artist Statement
The nature of visual perception intrigues me: how the eye continually tries to resolve these images, but is unable to do so, and how that is unsettling. I am drawn to the idea that we can believe something is real, while at the same time knowing it is illusory; that the experience of visual confusion, when the psyche is momentarily derailed, is what frees us to respond emotionally.
Process Statement
The Infinity Series is photo-collage made seamless by setting the camera's focusing ring at infinity. This sleight of hand allows me to conjure a mysterious tromp l'oeil world that hovers between the real and the fantastic. It is a world just beyond our grasp, where place may be suggested, but is never defined, and where the identity of the amorphous figures remains in question. It is a world that might exist in memory, in dreams, or, perhaps, in a parallel universe yet unvisited.
Bill Armstrong is a New York based fine art photographer who has been shooting in color for over 30 years. Mr. Armstrong is represented by ClampArt in New York; Hackelbury in London, and numerous galleries across the country and in Europe. His Mandala series was featured in a two-person exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2008, and he had a mid-career retrospective at the Southeast Museum of Photography in Daytona Beach in 2010. Mr. Armstrong’s work is in many museum collections including the Vatican Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and the Bibliotheque National de France. He has presented work in numerous museum exhibitions including: Philadelphia Museum of Art; Hayward Gallery, London; Musee de l’Elysee, Lausanne; Centro Internazionale di Fotografia, Milan; and FOAM, Amsterdam.
One of Mr. Armstrong’s images was chosen for the cover of Lyle Rexer’s Aperture book, The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photography. His work appears in Face: The New Photographic Portrait by William Ewing and Exploring Color Photography, by Robert Hirsch, among other books. He has also been published in numerous periodicals including The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper’s, House and Garden and Eyemazing. He is on the faculty at the International Center of Photography and the School of Visual Arts. His web site is: www.billarmstrongphotography.com
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