www.marcnewtonphotography.com/nofilter/
Artist Statement:
The photographic body of work, “#NoFilter,” references the social media expression of authenticity when sharing an image otherwise thought as manipulated. For over 150 years, photography has been a method for analyzing the landscape for its objective, true-to-life permanence. Its power and accessibility allow us to re-discover nature through composed ideals and complex individual narratives, free from the brush strokes, patterns, and vernacular found in traditional representations of the natural world.
The fragmented images in this series depict landscapes throughout the United States’ National and State parks through the lens of an iPhone. Because of the automated nature of the image stitching algorithm, the camera creates seemingly arbitrary repeating patterns in the landscape that come across as embedded, or ‘natural’ and in turn, digitally reinterpret the landscape. As the digital age and social media force us into new habits for experiencing the physical world, the once profound idea of permanence through photography, now evokes an individual experience. Through the infinite amount of available image data, and our evolving relationship to nature, the monuments and symbols once immortalized in the landscape are succumbing to the digital form.
Bio:
Marc Newton is an artist based in Binghamton, New York. His artwork employs a combination of photography and other processes which focuses on cultural perceptions of the natural world. Through studying the dynamics of symbols of natural beauty such as those found in tropical nurseries, artificial plants, and wilderness attractions, he works to discern societies draw to aesthetics in nature and the blurred line between celebration and romanticism. His art practice employs themes of environmental science, consumerism, and ideas of paradise as it pertains to social and ideological constructs that shape the future of our natural environment.
His work has been included in solo and group exhibitions both in the U.S and abroad including Bradford Washburn American Mountaineering Museum, Georgia Museum of Contemporary Art, Center for Photographic Art, as well as been on featured on Ain’t Bad Magazine, Wired.com, and Daily Servings Journal. He earned a Bachelors of Arts from Brevard College (NC) and his MFA in Photography from The Savannah College of Art and Design (GA) where he also worked as a staff photographer. Currently, Marc works as the Photography Specialist/Digital Media Specialist at SUNY Binghamton.
On display through January 29, 2019.
