Gerald Janssen

Artist Statement

Throughout the years of my life, art has returned to me time and again to save me in its way, though it exacts a certain price. In turn, I honor it by participating in the creative act as consistently as I can, down various byways and genres and categories of art, but the most apt core description is that I am photo-based. My photographic journey started in earnest when I left home to become a working photographer, and the desire and ambition that this particular art form can work upon the soul is significant, because the history of the medium is filled with talent, and one has to hone skills relentlessly until personal authenticity emerges. It is a lifelong journey performed amidst the constant shifting of identity, philosophy, and spirituality.

My sense of the importance of art and culture is that they are so necessary to humanity on a constant basis, like the sun, and are what we swim in on some level, no matter who we are. And so, in that sense, the access to created art that works to fulfill, not only what is needed by the heart and emotions, but at times works to bolster justice and fair play. I work to understand how to apply techniques to deeply personal expression. I cycle through the bedrock where drawing, painting, sculpture keep a relationship to the photographic and media arts. It is in that place where photo and video can work organically with the most basic of marking and traditional artistic expression through a digitally based creativity that is not AI-generated. These are my obsessions and motivations at this time in the world, and sweeping me forward. Art, Music, Film, Literature, forever for the people.