Galleries

 

 

Artist Statement
My images are fundamentally about form and revealing my subjects’ visual eloquence, often expressed in details and abstractions. Forms manifest in the resonance of a curve, the rhythm of a pattern, the dichotomy of light and shadow. They abound everywhere in nature: the twist of a leaf, the overlap of feathers on a bird’s wing, the symmetry of an unfurling flower. We emulate them in our human creations: the arch of a cathedral, the weave of a textile. These forms––abstractions from the larger world––connect with us at a basic level and are innately linked to how we see, organize and understand our world.

I explore these innate forms across a variety of subjects. Abstraction is the common element, the thread that unites all my work as I discover the essential forms within my subjects.The photographs I make rmay not fully disclose the particulars of the subject, as in the botanicals of Florilegium. These images request that the viewer look more closely at the photograph and explore their knowledge of the subjects pictured. In Illumitones I reveal little about the subject, working with the compositions created by the interplay of light, shadow and the object.

See lecture on Abstraction at the Center for Photgraphic Art
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThhoOzBoTI0&feature=related Process Statement
The portfolios shown here are made with an unusual technique that warrants explanation. These are cameraless images. Cameraless images are as old as photography itself, begun in the mid-1800s with Henry Fox Talbot’s photogenic drawings and Anna Atkin’s studies of mosses and algae. Lazslo Moholy-Nagy’s photograms and Henry Holmes Smith’s light modifier images are more recent manifestations of cameraless imagery. The form has continued outside the mainstream of photography to the present day. I embrace this tradition using modern tools and techniques. Since 1998 I have combined cameraless recording of my subjects and photo-collage. With this process a new surreal visual world based upon an exploration of light, color, texture and scale emerges in images that are at once superbly sharp and sensuously soft.

Rather than using a camera to record my subjects I use a flatbed scanner. When I started working with this technique ten years ago it was quite unheard of. Since then, many artists have begun to work this way and the genre is gaining acceptance and recognition as a new form of photography often called scannography. Most photographers working with scanners create a composition of a single scan and that becomes their finished image. My pieces are photo-collages made from multiple scans of original objects. The scans are my starting point, the building blocks of my final images which are composed of a number of scans or parts of scans; perhaps as many as a dozen or more. I keep thumbnails of the scans in a notebook––my sketchbook. When I’m ready to start working on a new composition I choose scans from the notebook that might work together and get started. I use Photoshop software to combine and layer the scans. This process allows me to create my own reality making compositions that move beyond the original scans.

My master “negatives” are the completed digital files. I make limited edition archival pigment prints in my studio using Epson’s K3 ink set and Moab Entrada Natural 300gsm paper. All prints are titled, editioned and signed on the front in pencil.

See Center for Photographic Art Lecture http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbBoschxf68

 

 

Kim Kauffman is a resident of Lansing, MI. She has been a practicing photographer for over 35 years. After college graduation (BA Social Science 1974) she worked in a community college photography program as lab manager and instructor. Later she worked as a photographer’s assistant and opened her own studio in 1986.

Recording her immediate surroundings, developing an abstract vision and exploring alternative processes are strong threads throughout Kim’s photography. Although much of her career has been based in film and wet darkroom work Kim has embraced the opportunities and challenges that digital technology offers. Since 1998 she has worked with a digitally-based cameraless photo-collage technique.

Kauffman advises photography students on portfolio development and gives talks to classes, artist groups and gallery patrons. She enjoys working one-to-one with students and sharing her experience in all aspects of photography, including business skills, that are not readily available in photography curricula.

Kauffman has won numerous national awards and presented many group and solo exhibitions. Her work is included in private, public and museum collections.