VIDEO STILLS, NYC
These video-still photographs are about the rhythm of the city, the rhythm of modern life. The works are reflections of our modern electronic and technological age and the fast-paced world in which we live. They record the pulse and flow of life through the streets and subways in an endless and ever faster pace.
In my travels through the streets of New York City and other major cities in search of photographs, I’m not looking for the classical ideal image. I’m interested in what’s beneath the surface, the greater beauty and the underlying psychological mood. The photographs are about the speed of our modern world in which we live and about struggle that is mostly emotional. The photographs are about the energy and forces that create our environment.
I photograph the unseen. Not the expected pose, but the unexpected gesture between poses. Not the expected message, but an emotional response caught in a moment off guard. A single perfect smile and noble pose is not what we really are. We are who we really are when no one is looking, when our real humanity is unguarded.
I want the images to be a psychological self-portrait. We make art about ourselves. It’s about how we feel, what we see, and what moves us emotionally. Art is a constant journey of self-discovery, and in that respect, our art is autobiographical. Art is about our individual nature and our collective humanity.
The gestures, forms, and the space between objects are all important to me. What is also interesting is the image that would normally pass unnoticed when you blink your eyes, but is instead traced on video at the speed of light, and just as quickly replaced by another image. My subjects are like actors in the cinema of life playing out a role. The images are bits of an endless continuum, just one of countless frames that came before, and an infinite number that will be played out unrecorded.
Great art is eternal. I am searching for the eternal in the fleeting moments in the relentless passage of time.
Donald Lokuta