Kent McInnis

Most of the art I've made in the last few years stems from digital photography and image-making. In the past and through my formal education I've painted, sculpted, edited and performed my way through ideas.

I spent many years of my young adulthood working with the mentally ill. Issues such as schizophrenia or the myriad forms of dementia became profound expressions of the tenuous hold we collectively share in perceiving the physical world. Those suffering from Alzheimer's fail to recognize the difference between a field of flowers and a flower-print wallpaper. Stroke victims can't distinguish between words that happen to start with the same letter; and schizophrenics base my trustworthiness on what color shirt I wear.

After searching for years on how to explore this subject through painting, I discovered photography is a much purer and concentrated tool for expressing that line between seeing and perceiving. The camera's cold eye serves as a faithful and largely unquestioned 'recorder' of the real world. But as my photos show, even subtle alterations to the resulting image can change the mundane into the extraordinary.