ARTIST STATEMENT


My creative process is grounded in traditional photographic methods and energized by two questions: Why? and How?. My electrical engineering education demands to know how, while my experience in living wants to know why. I am motivated by the music of John Coltrane, the writing of Langston Hughes, the painting of Romare Bearden and the photography of Henri Cartier Bresson, Gary Winogrand and Roy DeCarava. I make photographs quickly and causally but never without purpose. I describe my style as social landscape; compositions of people, places and things that cross my path daily. I have evolved into an intra-media performance artist by digitally blending visual and aural elements to be employed as character, environment and cinema in live performance.

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© William J. Cottman 2015