Composite digital photography (framed and matted).

24x36"

Limited edition 1 of 20.

Born in Toronto, Paul Dakota is an abstract photographer. Dakota has exhibited in various art and commercial spaces. He has shot album covers for artists Gallery 6 and Forest Management.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

The ephemermality of material . The inevitable decay of all things. The beauty of transcience is psychologically emotional because it parallels our own mortality- a vanitas.
One can find catastrophic beauty through the inevitable entropy in a developing patina, eating away gracefully at its metallic surface. Something is ripening over time while falling apart. These photographs reflect the weathered and charismatic character evidence of time passed.

The body is a tuning fork. When a viewer’s response is physical the viewer can become personally involved. Capitulating to the spirit of the work, the viewer can give it an individual interpretation. Its not as important to identify the image as it is to
listen to it. When one cannot find context for what one is seeing, the possibility for mystery exists. When we disregard or ignore the innate power of mystery we lose a vital part of ourselves.

For his series ‘Flora- Vellum’, Dakota uses a 12-megapixel cellphone camera. This digital quality is juxtaposed with tight, close-up shots of a floral still-life composed with various fruits and blooms. A tension lies between the limited quality of the camera and the floral subjects, set up as intimate and quasi sensual landscapes, incarcerated through mesh and lit from behind, underlining the increasingly delicate shroud between nature and humanity.
Manipulating the photographs digitally, Dakota pushes colour combinations into abstraction exploring formalist concepts of universal beauty.The conceptual irony of these studies lies in the nature of colour combinations that have blatantly left the natural world behind and entered a digital realm of heightened saturation and unnatural combinations.
Dakota’s images speak to the sublime physical feelings of simultaneous attraction and aversion, exploration and restraint that we feel towards Mother Nature. This work presents great humbling moments where the ego of human impact on the natural world is quiet and observant. Each piece questions the honesty of our romance with nature and challenges our true devotion to the environment.

Works are Giclée Prints on Fine Art Matte Paper 192 gsm. .