THE ARTIST'S PROCESS
ROBERT STURMAN
THE
ARTIST'S
PROCESS
Robert Sturman's gift is to see things differently from the beginning of the process, and his images come alive as free-form visual poetry. Both representational and mysterious, the artist's multi-media pieces reflect the alchemy of his signature blend of painting and photography. They possess a graceful dreamlike quality, yet are seriously in the moment with an intense rush of color and light.
In finding his own artistic signature, Sturman refined an improvisational, labor-intensive process that synthesizes both his photographic and painterly expertise. Each of his pieces begins with an original image created with an instant camera, instant photographic film, and meticulously considered lighting. As soon as the image comes out of the camera, Sturman warms it up to keep the chemical emulsions fluid—depending on his locale when shooting, source heat might be the sun in the tropics, or the warmth of his winter coat in cooler climes.
On site wherever he is in the world, Sturman then immediately carves into the still wet and supple surface of the photo with a variety of handmade tools until he feels the image has been manipulated and transformed to its ultimate potential. The piece is later enlarged using an optimally high-resolution scanner, and a process through which none of the original light radiance or color luminosity is lost. Because Sturman chooses his subject matter in advance with its inherent color values in mind, his palette is extraordinary. Coupled with the impressionistic "brushstrokes" of Sturman's hand implements, the result is as pure a fusion of painting and photography as exists anywhere.
