Michael Elenko: ReViewing The Instant

August 14th – August 29th

ReViewing The Instant is a photographic exhibition of restored and digitized images that were originally created with a Polaroid SX-70 camera during the 1980s. and hacked. Many of the photographs are colorful, strange, and vernacular.

ARTIST STATEMENT
ReViewing The Instant is a collection of re-rendered photographs originally created during the 1980s with a Polaroid SX-70 instant print camera. The images convey ephemeral topics common to snapshots that as a whole capture the mid-1980s, especially the colors and textures.

Technical back story: A common practice among artists at that time was to disassemble or physically alter photographs kicked out by this wonderful camera. My methods included hand painting, and manually manipulating the image during its development process. After being hacked, the print was reassembled.

After 40 years, some decay is creeping into the framed original images, so in preserving the work as a digital file, I was able to restore the vibrant, signature colors of the SX-70 “look.”

BIO
Michael Elenko has been exhibiting photographs in fine art galleries across the US since 1983. His objective is to make visible the unseen. If you, the viewer, can engage with our shared reality just that much more, then I feel that deeper communication has occurred, and my photography is closer to being accomplished. Michael lives on Vashon Island with wife Fran Brooks.