Artist's Statement
I am compelled to create and am visually oriented. Photography is simply my chosen medium. My aesthetic constitution is a careful sense of composition using space, form, colour, and pattern. I am often more interested in the arrangement of those qualities rather than the specific subject of the photograph.
The work is further shaped by my exploration of photography as a “way of seeing” and its nature and role in the scope of fine art.
But there is also a feeling. It is when all of the elements in the viewfinder coalesce into a whole. I yearn to experience that gut feeling when the scene, the context, the light, and the composition come to a singularity. Everything within the image is there because it should be. Chaos finds order.
That is the ideal, of course. Achieving it is often elusive.
Testimonials
“Doug van Hemessen is a photographic artist who has the ability and vision to transcend the clichés so prevalent in the world of “art photography”. He produces work which engages the viewer through purity and boldness of colour and design. His work is unpretentious, creative and original which places him firmly into the realm of the serious and successful visual artist.” - Steven Vero - visual artist
“Doug van Hemessen is an artist-at-large of the ‘subtle yet profound’. He has an uncanny ability to breath interest into the mundane, and to reveal underlying ironies in our lives. His work is positive and playful, soft but bold, and curiously reverential. It builds layers of meaning that draw the viewer in – to their own reflections and revelations.” - Brad Peterson - Landscape Architect