ARTIST BIO: Matt Connors flirted with photography in his 20’s, taking pictures with his OM-2 camera, and learning how to make a silver gelatin print in the darkroom. Life intervened, and Matt did not take photography back up again until 2014, after a long career in the software industry. At that point he was working digitally, but by 2018 he became dissatisfied with the full digital process. He found it a bit sterile, and it did not fulfill his needs to work with his hands. Late in 2018 Matt took a digital negative and palladium printing workshop with Kerik Kouklis, and in 2019 began to make palladium prints in his home studio from digital negatives. In late 2020 he began making cyanotypes, and experimenting with different toning techniques.
Matt is a member of the ImageMakers of Monterey County, and is currently President of the Board of Trustees for the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, CA. He resides in Carmel Valley, CA with his wife Elneda and his black Lab Norton.
ARTIST STATEMENT: I agree with what Robert Adams said in his wonderful essay "Beauty in Photography" - "successful art rediscovers Beauty for us". Perhaps it is not in vogue for art to be about beauty, and certainly there are many worthy and worthwhile art projects that express insight into the human condition or what is going on in our world. My hat is off to those artists, yet I do not seek to emulate them. I simply seek to rediscover Beauty. I believe there is a place for Beauty in the world, and that if more of us spent more time feeling the wonder, awe, appreciation and humility one feels when one brushes one's fingertips against Beauty, we'd live in a better world.
