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Beauty
in the beast
---- Text and Photos by Michael Kern ----
Like lots of new ideas, it was an accidental
discovery that led me to develop my photography into a new artform.
I wanted to create a letterhead for my business and settled upon an image of an iguana
I had taken. It had a beautiful and striking
eye so I focused on that. The problem was,
the image needed to span the width of the
page, so I mirrored it on itself - and in the
process, created a surreal and impactful
picture.
It won the 2007 Nature’s Best Award in the
Creative Digital category and still hangs in
the Smithsonian Museum, long after the accompanying exhibit ended.
That got me thinking - What further potential
was there for creating digital artworks from
my traditional wildlife portraiture? How far
could I push the technique?
Greenbottle blue tarantula
Chromatopelma cyaneopubescens
My photographic work has always focused on
showing the “beauty in the beast” - snakes,
spiders, lizards, creepy crawlies and more.
For many, my traditional photographic portraits of these animals are enough and serve
that purpose. However, there are still a large
number of people who cannot break through
the barrier of fear and anxiety they have when
looking at a spider or snake... no matter how
beautiful. So I have experimented and evolved
my work to help these people find that beauty.
Through digital manipulation I have attempted
to abstract out the reality of the creature, until
all that’s left is simply nature’s color and texture - or, as I like to think, the distilled “beauty
in the beast”.
There has been no color manipulation of
these images, they are from nature’s palate.
I believe the forms that are created work at
two levels. From afar, the colours and shapes
themselves have a spirit. They live and add
personality to the space they are in. But when
viewed close-up, there is an infinite amount of
detail and hidden treasure for the observer to
discover.
I call this work Abstract Reality.
Eyelash Viper
Bothriechis schlegelii
Variable bush viper
Atheris squamigera
Panther chameleon
Furcifer pardalis
To technique I use to create these pieces is
relatively simple. Start with an image, find
the most interesting component, whether it is
colour, pattern, texture or all three... crop out
that part and, using the new image, experiment and grow the piece... mirror the crop,
mirror the mirror, crop the mirror, mirror the
mirror, rotate and crop... there is no formula,
you just need to watch and guide the evolving piece intuitively. Sometimes they work,
sometimes they don’t. Whether the end result
is ‘art’ worthy or not, the creative process is
fascinating to me.
Once I get the piece to what I believe is an interesting point, I stop the abstraction and begin to work the edges, giving the piece more
personality. To me, the outer form of the abstraction is almost as important as the inner
kaleidoscope.
Patterns are not uncommon in nature, but
they are often hidden. Even sounds have geometry, as shown by the study of cymatics,
where different frequencies are applied to
sand or water to create intricate patterns.
When I compare my abstractions to cymatic images, or natural patterns such as snowflakes, I can see common geometric principles. Even though I have complete freedom
when I create the pieces, it is as if their construction is governed by the intrinsic harmonic
fabrics of nature.
Leaf tailed gecko
Uroplatus lineatus
Brazilian pinkbloom tarantula
Pamphobeteus platyomma
Green and black Poison Dart Frog
Dendrobates auratus
I love creating these pieces and watching
how they evolve. The repetitive nature of the
process makes it almost meditative. I am both
the creator and the observer.
My aim is to come up with something uniquely different but the concept itself is not new.
The cubism movement, pioneered by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso in the early
20th Century, shared the same core principle
of reducing natural forms to their geometric
equivalents. In Cubist artwork, three dimensional objects are analyzed, broken up and
reassembled in an abstracted form. The subject, depicted from a multitude of viewpoints,
is represented in a greater context. In a lot
of ways, that is exactly what I am doing - with
photography rather than paint.
Spiny flower mantis
Pseudocreobotra wahlbergii
Rhinoceros viper
Bitis nasicornis
Pope’s tree viper
Trimeresurus popeorum
A lot of people are unable to get past their
almost primeval fears of reptiles, amphibians
and arachnids, begging the question: how
can we conserve these fascinating animals?
The first step in any conservation effort is to
engender an appreciation of the species and
ecosystems that need saved. I use these images to show the beauty of the animals, without the form which creates the fear. Perhaps,
when the viewer’s curiosity is aroused by the
abstraction, they will be more disposed to
think about the reality. That way, these images
can help build an appreciation and empathy
for species, and a desire to conserve them,
that might otherwise be difficult to encourage.
Waglers Temple viper
Tropidolaemus wagleri
Cobalt poison dart frog
Dendrobates tinctorius
Green tree python
Morelia viridis
Rainbow millipede
Aulacobolus rubropunctatus
Angle headed lizard
Gonocephalus doriae
There is a puzzle aspect to these images,
where the viewer tries to guess which animal
the abstraction comes from. While the original
frame is helpful in answering the mystery of
the piece, I usually keep the pairs of images separate, allowing the viewer to appreciate the abstraction anonymously and without
bias. Their impressions may not be the same
if the source of the piece is known from the
outset - particularly if it is a creature the viewer fears.
Bearded dragon
Pogona vitticeps
Leaf tailed gecko
Uroplatus sp.
Common iguana
Iguana iguana
Veiled Chameleon
Chamaeleo calyptratus
My hope is that, once the viewer begins to really look into the detail of each abstract, they
will be able to see an edge to the piece; a kind
of underlying tension or complexity…
This is their subconscious detecting and reacting to the primeval fear people have to the
original images; they get the sense that there
is something there, under the surface, which
they are reacting to.
Feather of East African
Crowned Crane
Balearica regulorum
Feather of Victoria crowned
pigeon
Goura victoria
Feather of Blue
crowned pigeon
Goura cristata
Feather of Blue-andyellow Macaw
Ara ararauna
West African green mamba
Dendroaspis viridis
The images in this series will carry on evolving as I continue to create them. Like the individual pieces, the overall process is a journey.
I am now expanding the subject matter to other areas in nature (most of my work to date
has focused on my exotics images - reptiles,
amphibians and invertebrates). I also hope to
start experimenting with printing techniques
for the abstracts…. fabrics, wallpapers and
backlit Durable Transparencies.
Where this journey may lead, I don’t yet know.
But it is a path I can’t help but follow.
Search www.naturepl.com
“Kern Abstracts”
Contact:
timaldred@naturepl.com
+44(0)117 911 4675