In the course of my photographic explorations, in this now half century since 1970, I have continuously appropriated from an entire visual universe, both public and private, to create my personal cosmology. This series of images was begun in the analog early 1980’s, when I had access to a process printer, and was able to lay visual elements on a flat bed, and shoot 8″x10″ color negative film, to render the images in the first part of these series.
These were called “Transpositions” in my mind and on the print, and a set was shown at the Akron Museum of Art in 1982, soon after they were executed. A few images were acquired for the permanent collection of the museum, after they were shown. These were contact “C-type” prints, and all these years later, the saturation has held up remarkably well.
In the early 2010’s, when I had become conversant with Photoshop and digital manipulation, I began to do the second set of these images, and only now began to realize the strong connections between them.
It is a dense private/public realm to explore, and a departure from my usual photographic series, rendered by the optics of lenses and a camera. This is more of an internal visual journey.
To thoroughly experience these photographs, please get completely lost.
Abe Frajndlich, 6 August, 2021
P.S. The title is indebted to Joao Miro, in the painting now hanging at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, that I first encountered in the home of Pierre Matisse, the art dealer and son of Henri Matisse.
