I am fascinated by perception and the brain’s power to fool itself into seeing what it expects to see. Wired to apprehend the world in terms of genus, we sort and categorize, sifting our way through life. And though this may well have aided our ancestors in their quest for survival, for us today, learning to see clearly and distinctly is perhaps the only way toward living a more full, more deep life. Nearly every spiritual and every creative act begins with a repudiation of what’s assumed -- what we have fooled ourselves into seeing -- and an insistence on looking at the world anew, closely and carefully. I believe that this is what Cezanne meant when he said, “Get to the heart of what’s before you.”
Art has the power to guide others in that process, and each art goes about that in its own way. What’s so especially fine about photography is how without restructuring reality it can, in its perpetual moment, get us to slow down so that finally we see the world with clarity and wonder. That as a photographer I might awaken this in others is for me the most important reason why I do what I do.
I graduated from the College of Charleston in South Carolina, where I studied photography. But I first came to photography via rocks. Growing up, the kids in my neighborhood had something of a monopoly on lemonade stands, and so I turned to selling rocks I’d painted. My first one sold for $20, which for me was an extraordinary thing. Someone would pay money for art, for my art! Of course, selling art to kindly neighbors and selling art in the wider world are slightly different propositions.
In addition to pursuing personal projects I am always on the lookout for creative collaborations. I am currently living outside of Providence, RI and am accepting assignments in the New England area for editorial, portraiture, corporate and commercial work. Please feel free to contact me at jim@jimbrueckner.com to discuss an assignment or commission work.