Leona Webb, Photographer - Artist Statement
I am a Bloomfield Hills, MI based artist and have exhibited in exhibitions in Ann Arbor, Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills, Grosse Pointe and Detroit. Born and raised in Northern Michigan, I went on to complete a Bachelor's Degree in Business and a Master's Degree in Organizational Development. However, my real passion has always been music and the arts.
When I first approached Detroit in particular with my camera and tripod, I thought I was capturing a fragment of the city's loss and decay in 2001. However, upon studying the images, I found that many of the buildings had only lost their first function. They now occupy center stage as visual objects of commanding beauty and endless decorative iteration. They pull us into a dreamtime of movement, into what was and what will be, just like the automobile. Detroit put the world on wheels. My automobile photographs are not about conventional thinking. The automobile is where the boundaries of design are pushed to achieve fresh ideas and cutting-edge concepts. I am intrigued by that concept. I have renewed and extended my fascination with these shapes through my images.
My wish for you is to see these images as other than what they seem to represent. The images of cars are not just cars. The images of buildings are not just buildings. All of these images are abstractions to one degree or another. What is being emphasized are forms, ideas, and qualities apart from the particular object pictured. Images then become ideas. They can vary from person to person and time to time with the same person. The images come from a part of me that works unconsciously. They come from that private part of me and I hope it will touch that part of you as well.
I am a firm believer that art is a collaborative work between the audience and the image, and art happens somewhere in the space between. I prefer not to bias observers with whimsical or abstract titles. It seems to me this limits the art's power to be something different for each person - instead of letting the image speak for itself.
Leona L. Webb
leonawebbphotography.com
lwphoto10@yahoo.com
(734) 904-4612
