(Cross between Nature/Digitally Enhanced)
The chickens are indigenous to the environment in which I composited them--Cappadocia, Turkey. In many of the images, the shapes of the chickens with their cockscombs and feathers are put into dialogue with similar rock formations.
In the Romantic visual arts tradition, such landscapes often convey the sublimity of nature as surveyed by the lone individual. The unfamiliar, exotic quality of my selected landscapes is intended to create a similar sense of mystery and surprise. But the human individual has been supplanted by the chicken, elevated to something approaching nobility and the heroic, the chicken as Romantic 'high priest.' There is a comic element in this elevation.
Pat Swain is an award winning photographer whose work has been shown extensively around the world. She has been published in numerous magazines, including Leonardo (MIT Press), the New York Times, Digital Fine Art, Spin Magazine, New York Magazine, and Viking Press. She holds a B.A. in History from Mount Holyoke College, an M.F.A. in Digital Art from Pratt Institute, and an M.A. from Columbia University. She has taught digital imaging at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan
Recent Awards 2009
Silver Award: The International Aperture Awards 2009
Bronz Award: The International Aperture Awards 2009
Two Honorable Mentions: The International Photo Awards: The Lucie Awards 2009
Winner Pet Division: Photo District News Face Contest 2009
Winning Pet Photo advertising the Best Friend Photo Contest (Photo District News 2009
and ASPCA)
Babayan Culture House Artist Residency, Cappadocia, Turkey 2009
