KL9 Pier Into The Fog [Night] 160212 065_6_7_2a 16x20wide 1920

KL7 Leave A Light On 160212 003 16x20wide 1920

OMA-AA Biennial
Artist’s Statement
Kurt Lightfoot

Leave A Light On and Pier Into The Fog are images from a body of work titled Urban Coastal.  It consists of nine images organized into three triptychs: Urbanscape, Fog, Pier.  Leave A Light On is from the Urbanscape triptych, and Pier Into The Fog is from the Fog triptych. The body of work is discussed here...

Fog is both its own triptych and a shared visual metaphor in all three triptychs. Fog lies over and through them all. Fog ties seascape and urbanscape together in a universal, subtle, emotive way. Fog is both subtle and dominant. On one level it is hardly there at all, yet its feeling defines the scene before us. Sometimes we feel more clearly in the fog.

The Urbanscape triptych is about the human-made world from inland to the coastal edge. The coastline draws people to it, but it also draws a sharp line between urbanscape and seascape. In Urbanscape the human drama dominates, and that drama incorporates some of the mystery and transcendence promised at seascape’s edge.

The Overarching Mission:
My mission is to create narrative and interpretive images and projects that have significant meaning to the viewer. I am aligned with Ansel Adams' famous assertion, "There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer." And with Rocky Schenck's, "To me, a photograph exists for the observer, not the creator."