Brian Hallas

As a photographer, I’m drawn to subjects we frequently take for granted or overlook: shadows, detritus, reflections, scarred surfaces, the landscape, the heavens, or even the view out the window. Lately, I’ve been focusing on the plants and flowers that decorate my daily life, creating abstract blooms of the imagination. I refine each captured image through the filter of abstract imaginative realism, seeking a heightened experience for both the viewer and myself. My iPhone is my tool, to shoot and manipulate my photographs (utilizing self-created filters in a variety of apps) in a kaleidoscopic process that routinely over-saturates color and distorts myriad essential aspects of the original images. This draws attention to and dramatizes their textures, contours, patterns, hues, and moods. The often-painterly results offer the viewer an intense and enigmatic experience. Photography is the way I now create — having had a career as varied and random as my subject matter. I’ve spent most of my life collaborating in theater, film, and music, principally as a sound designer in NYC. Perhaps ironically, I have an ability to “see” sound, so my metamorphosis into photography is not so foreign as one might think. My tastes are stimulated by an eclectic array of artists from different art forms, eras, and genres whose works encourage me to immerse myself in this fantastic kaleidoscopic universe.