Short Stories

• Photographer
  David Boyce, Hong Kong
• Website
  http://www.davidboyce.net

â??All photographs are there to remind us of what we forget. In this -- as in other ways -- they are the opposite of paintings. Paintings record what the painter remembers. Because each one of us forgets different things, a photo more than a painting may change its meaning according to who is looking at it.â?? John Berger, Keeping a Rendezvous, "How Fast Does It Go?", 1992



A lot of my work is about abstracting the everyday. I like to find beauty in the mundane and overlooked. I am also drawn to the chance and random actions I have limited control over. These works have evolved from several ideas and projects that I have been working on for some time.

One of my interests is language, especially as I live in a city where my native tongue is not the main language spoken. So, the language of language, if you can excuse the tortuous expression, attracts my attention. Language can be described as â??beautiful, ugly, angry, aggressive, muscular, soft, prettyâ?? among other things. These same words can be used to describe objects, art works and people. I am also interested in visual language - the ability of images to tell stories and convey the passage of time. Hence, the alternative name for the works I am showing is â??Short Storiesâ??.

In addition to my recent re-reading of John Bergerâ??s seminal text, â??Ways of Seeingâ??, another inspiration for these works is Chinese calligraphy, with its emphasis on aesthetic harmony, both in the written words and in the â??presentationâ??. This has lead me to develop a body of work as a means of telling (an abstracted) story that is not to be viewed, or thought of, as photojournalism.

What evolved is what you see here. An attempt to tell a story, but one that I, as Berger points out, am only partly the author.

I am a New Zealand born and now Hong Kong based visual artist.

My work divides, very broadly, into two areas. The first is an interest in, and continuing explorations of identity, spirituality and language, and are the areas that make up the bulk of my endeavors. The second is an area I call, very loosely, â??Random Beautyâ??, and is an attempt to find beauty in the everyday world. This area then divides down to a range of areas, themes and concepts that are part of my every day interaction with the world. And sometimes the threads combine. The work I make, generally, consists of multiple images. I like to develop a visual narrative in what I do. At a minimum it will be a diptych or triptych. Other times it will be a substantial group of images that make up one unified work. I want the viewer of my works to have to move their eyes around and engage with what is in front of them. Whilst working in a predominately conceptual arena I strongly acknowledge a wide range of influences in my work, from renaissance artists to abstract impressionists, minimalists to post modernists.