“The beginning & end of all literary activity is the reproduction of the world that surrounds me, by means of the world that is within me, all things being grasped, related, recreated, moulded & reconstructed in a personal form & an original manner”
- Goethe
I didn’t set out to make portraits, urban landscapes, or even street photographs. Looking back over the work, I see evidence of myself reflected in these images. A search for self was evidently taking place.
When I observe how I framed the images through windows, and with lenses to deliberately keep my distance, avoiding specific or individual portraits, I now see that I was seeking universal symbolism in the images and their implied narratives.
It is me. It is you. It is all of our lives. A sometime record emotion.
The viewer is drawn into the image as a witness, a voyeur, and we can perhaps find a commonality through the images.
Our aloneness, sadness, disconnection, or marginalization becomes visible.
The city as a psychological terrain. An In-scape.
Here we play out our hopes and dreams, our fears and loneliness.
“Where there is much light, the shadow is deep.” – Goethe
Frank Gross, January 2013
Biography
I was born in Klerksdorp, North West province, South Africa and currently reside in Toronto, Canada. Early in my photographic career, I was fortunate to work and learn from masters in the field of film and photography who mentored and enabled me to launch a successful career as a photographer, filmmaker and artist. I also had the good fortune to work with creative clients and garner a number of industry awards: Loerie, Bessie (Canadian Marketing Awards), Int’l Film & TV Festival NY, London Int’l Film Festival, Clio, The One Show, Cannes Marketing.
A lengthy hiatus from the world of commercial photography, compounded by health issues, has led me to seriously focus on my art in recent years. By exploring portraiture, still life, landscape and conceptual photography I have been able to develop and focus my voice as an artist and create several bodies of work. Over the years life changing events have brought new priorities, perspectives and the development of a new ‘seeing’ to fruition. By following my artistic impulses and photographing that which inspires me, I have reconnected with myself and discovered what interests me, what moves me, in essence what I’m about. Each image is like a single tile in the mosaic of my life. Eventually, they’ll all piece together as a self-portrait.
