Artist Statement
I am a recorder of reflected light. Too often photography is defined in social terms, taking the interests, intentions, and/or needs of the viewer into account, and relying on external context or history for meaning. My photographs don’t function within this paradigm. They are about line, shape, form, color, surface, and light. I look at the world and think in terms of beauty and order as primal forces. Those forces define every decision I make when creating an image. Each wall begins as a canvas, a two-dimensional surface, a foundation on which to build an image. I don’t see myself as a traditional photographer, but as an image builder, trying to capture an essence, which results in images that translate as pleasurable experiences to viewers, pleasurable because it is, not because of what it is, where it is or why it is. My photographs exist within themselves, detailed portraits of the crossroads where art and technology meet. The images become stories about what photography does, its ability to record detail with great clarity and definition. They celebrate the technology and the process of photography, the core attributes that make photography such a unique medium in the world of art. As art, my photography offers the viewer a Zen-like experience, where order is beauty, beauty is order, and everything necessary to comprehend a given image is contained within the image.

 

 

John A. Chakeres received his Bachelor of Fine Art degree from Ohio University in 1977 in both photography and printmaking. During that period he also studied with Ansel Adams and later worked as an assistant to Adams in his workshops. He has published three books of his photographs, Traces: An Investigation in Reason, 1977, D’art Objects: A Collaboration. 1978, and Random New York: An Unscripted Walk, 2008. Chakeres’s current photographs explore the concepts of formalism and found objects in context of photography. One of the hallmarks of his images is the integration of the process and materials of photography as part of the content. His photographs have been included in numinous exhibitions and publications. They can also be found in a number of permanent collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the Monterey Museum of Art, and the Tweed Museum of Art. He has also been a contributing editor to Photomethods magazine and taught photography, printmaking, and digital imaging at Ohio University, Columbus College of Art and Design, and Columbus State Community College. Currently he resides in Columbus, Ohio.