Campus exhibition highlights photo faculty's career evolution

From analog composites to digital fractals, a new exhibition in RIT’s University Gallery showcases the 40-year photographic career and evolution of James Porto, assistant professor in the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences.  

“Evolve or Devolve” is on view from Jan. 15-Feb. 6 in University Gallery, located on the second floor of Booth Hall. A reception is planned for 4:30-7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 15, in the gallery — it is free and open to all.

“Evolve or Devolve” traces Porto’s artistic journey from early innovations with analog photorealistic composites through the adoption of emerging digital tools, revealing a thematic arc of surrealistic imagery across decades of rapid technological change. Key works from each decade are exhibited in a chronological timeline, culminating in the exhibition of the artist’s most recent exploration of camera-less, digital fractal images. 

The timeline begins in the early 1980s, featuring portraits shot on 4-by-5 transparency, using an in-camera composite technique to layer multiple exposures on top of one another. The photographs were then printed on Cibachrome and merged with the frames that are presented in this exhibit.

In the early 1990s, the advent of Photoshop enabled Porto to expand his work into new territory. Continuing to shoot on film, he scanned the images and digitally assembled them to envisage increasingly surrealistic composites, previously impossible to do with analog techniques alone. 

From 2003-18, Porto adopted digital capture as his primary medium, marking a fertile period of creative freedom that bypassed analog workflows. During this time, he developed ever-more complex and dense composites, reflecting the surge of “overload” that accompanied the digital and information revolution.

The most recent phase of his work represents a leap into an entirely new medium — 3D animation. Completing an MFA in computer arts at the School of Visual Arts in 2020, Porto delved deeper into computer-generated art to produce fractal imagery derived from mathematical formulas. This new series, “Strange Visitors,” signals a shift from reimagining the external world to exploring internal landscapes.

“Evolve or Devolve” offers audiences a window into Porto’s career and artistic trajectory, highlighting key transitions between technological change and new media along with the evolving vision of the artist himself. 

About the artist

James Porto is a photographer, 3D artist, and assistant professor of photography at RIT whose career spanned 35 years of commercial freelance photography in New York City from the 1980s through 2020. He enjoyed an exciting, fulfilling commercial assignment career working for clients such as Absolut, Nike, Reebok, Sony, and Texas Instruments. Some of his editorial clients included ESPN, New York Times Magazine, New York, Sports Illustrated, TIME, and Wired, among many others. His fine art also has appeared in multiple galleries in the U.S.

In 2020, he earned an MFA in computer art and in 2021, pivoted toward teaching full-time as a tenure-track assistant professor within RIT’s School of Photographic Arts and Sciences.

To explore Porto’s full portfolio, visit his website.

Press contact

For press inquiries, images, or interviews, please contact James Porto at jppph@rit.edu/(917) 309-8321 or Felicia Swartzenberg at fdsmkt@rit.edu.