All images (c) Peter Schwartz
[These photographs leave one with a sense of having just turned the corner onto a vista in which, moments earlier, something extraordinary happened. What displacement of mass caused the water's rippling, rainbow sheen? Where did that array of symmetry and structure come from, obviously constructed, but unanchored to any comfortable purpose? Did something just scamper or bound up that ladder to the barn's spreading loft above? Wonder and dread are a breath apart. — Editor.]
Artificial Sea
Coercion
The Excuse
Occupation
Rationalism
Water
New Aura
Artist’s Statement:
I’ve been thinking about numbness a lot lately, thinking how I’ve been numb most of my life. Why? Because it’s so tempting. If you take out the joy of your highs and the misery of your lows, you achieve a kind of pseudo-balance. But what a price.
To some, photography might seem like the most potentially detached medium. You see something cool and press a button. But that sure isn’t the case for me. I’m always looking for pictures now and it’s made me notice the small beauty in almost everything. It’s simple; paying attention is the opposite of being numb, so for that I thank God every day for my camera.
After years of writing and painting, Peter Schwartz has moved to another medium: photography. In the past his work’s been featured in many prestigious print and online journals including: Existere, Failbetter, Hobart, International Poetry Review, Red Wheelbarrow, Reed, and Willard & Maple. Doing interviews, collaborating with other artists, and pushing the borders of creativity, his mission is to broaden the ways the world sees art.