Using unusual subjects and unorthodox photographic techniques, Michael Amrose explores the use of color, shapes and textures, and their interaction to create abstract images. The images that result express energy, rhythm and emotion.
Quotidian I (Portfolio)
© Amrose 2014
In Quotidian I, Michael Amrose explores the vernacular of everyday objects. Curtains, for the most part, are functional, serving the purposes of enhancing privacy, warmth, darkness, and calming noise. Though they surround us everyday, they are unnoticed and can be quite ordinary. Moving the camera, the curtains or both, the curtain’s familiar characteristics remain only to be distorted by movement and by the color from the sun, sky and trees. Light, form, texture and movement combine to reinvent the vernacular creating unique, abstract interpretations of curtains. Beyond documentation, the process takes viewers on a conceptual journey shifting their perception of ordinary, common curtains surrounding them to one that is unique and abstract.
Quotidian II (Portfolio)
© Amrose 2014
Amrose used the same process in Quotidian II only he used more motion. Curtains are his subject, though the resulting images bare little resemblance to them. The areas of color that overlap and interact create tensions that are alleviated or intensified by motion. The motion eliminates the context of curtains creating emotional and mesmerizing images that resonate with the viewer in a unique way. Smooth textures, unique forms, sweeping movement and compelling colors invite the viewer’s perceptions to make emotional connections, not to curtains but to their own narrative.
Street Art (Portfolio)
© Amrose 2014
Michael Amrose considers these photographs modern day versions of cave paintings. Why cave paintings? The purpose of cave paintings may have been religious, artistic and/or for documenting history, events or ideas. The purpose of his subject was obvious—to repair cracks in city streets. There are, however, similarities between the two. The “painters” are unknown, and in many instances, artistic elements were found in each. There were areas with interesting shapes, lines and textures that seemed to go beyond the repair. To these, he added his interpretation and created the Street Art series.
About:
Michael Amrose developed an interest in abstract photography the more he became aware of its possibilities and opportunities. It offered him a new and greater freedom to express new ideas and emotions beyond the confines of representational photography. For the viewer, he wants his photography to affect a powerful, personal, emotional and psychological resonance born of the emotion with which these images were created and experienced.
His photographic experience began at CEPA in Buffalo, NY and was furthered in his studies at the Center of Media Study at SUNY Buffalo where he received his M.A. in filmmaking. That led to five years of freelance scriptwriting for corporations and non-profits, one year as an adjunct professor in filmmaking at SUNY Fredonia, and periods of commercial photography.
He has exhibited in the United Stated and Canada, and is currently working on a video of his photography for the Burchfield Penney Museum, Buffalo, NY.
You may visit his website at michaelamrose.com/