Evolve or Devolve

The art path is a trail of the evolution of one’s consciousness in relation to a medium and to changes in that medium. This exhibit contrasts earlier and current work to map those simultaneous evolutions.

I found photography at 11 and devoted my life to it, captivated by its alchemical process. At once I was bored with straight photography and wanted to make images that didn’t resemble reality. This led to numerous film experimentations in the camera and the darkroom.

Frames (1988-92) was the first coherent body of artwork that came out of that obsession. The portraits were shot on 4x5 transparency in an in-camera composite (made before the advent of Photoshop and our digital tools). The multi-exposure process was invented to produce a more direct method of compositing than the laborious darkroom practice that I was then employing. The photographs were then printed on Cibachrome and merged with the Frames.

I was fortunate to have forged a livelihood solely with the camera. I would make images for commercial and editorial clients for nearly four decades, transforming the external world into conceptual images that were marketable and engaging. During that period, I pursued every creative impulse with photography that I could conceive. Even before I stopped seeking photographic subjects, I began to turn my attention inwards, to my consciousness. I earned an MFA in Computer Art in 2020 to learn how to make images that were not possible with a camera, that might offer a more digitally mediated glimpse of my inner world.

Strange Visitors (2021-now) is camera-less art. These are digital fractal images driven by a sense of self being led by the possibilities of mathematical formulas. I am currently entranced by purely digital art and how some of its forms can suggest and map transcendent patterns. The fractal begins as a pre-historic organic form, mathematical in its essence. It has become, based on the very same underlying mathematics, a medium of personal metaphysical exploration. This connection, available through imaging, expresses its power. Printing on aluminum then adds another material and light-registering dimension to the play of patterns.

Evolve or Devolve is the spirit by which a freelance artist lives. The work that comes through that artist expresses one or the other with each iteration. Frames and Strange Visitors offer diverse views into my image-mediated psyche during the timeframes of their creation, on the screen and then as materialized, printed and approached in space for viewing.

- James Porto October 2025