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Statement

Dominic Rouse

Life can be likened to a movie shown only once to a captive audience of one - a darkened room in which the level of illumination is a decision for the solitary occupant. To see the light we must first acknowledge that we are in the dark.

Were it not for the pain to be found in the wider world I might not have sought sanctuary in the confinement of my own where I discovered an endless supply of the raw materials needed to make the images I do. These photographs are the companions of my thoughts and my thoughts the products of an endless

“To take a piece of paper coated with a silver gelatin and then allow light and chemicals to caress it in such a way that they leave behind an imprint of one’s soul is an exquisite joy that no amount of criticism can diminish. I do not
have ambition as such, every completed piece is an ambition achieved.”

the closest we humans have to a truth. An artist who is only interested in truth will soon find himself unemployed. I would define my photographs as expositions of the fallacy we know as truth and I might add that beauty is measured in degrees of deceit, the greater the beauty the greater the deceit. Nonetheless, I am addicted to beauty though unfortunately I am a habit that beauty has managed to kick. It is comforting to consider that if all that existed was beautiful, beauty would cease to exist.
Perhaps my images have the potential for truth as they are inaccurate representations of reality and whilst language limits our capacity for understanding, art does not. Only those lacking in imagination are able to confuse reality with its depiction and unless photography be inherently sinful it should not be possible to find fault with a man who views the world through a camera’s lens.

The recent union of the photographic discipline with the freedoms of expression previously the domain of painters now granted to us by the digital realm has the potential for great things.

conversation with self. I do not choose to make my images, they choose me to get made and they ooze out of me like puss from a running sore. I view my thoughts more as assailants than as friends or benign visitors but I muchprefer my own madness and lies to the maddening half-truths of others. The goal of thought is to free oneself from others; the only person I am trying to take advantage of is myself.

Art is not made by the wise but by men and women in search of wisdom and to search at all is wisdom enough. Art is the exploration of the human mind by the human mind, it is the servant of self and one can do oneself no greater service.

Silence is the imagination’s amniotic fluid and imagination is the instrument of self-knowledge -knowledge of oneself is the most that we can know. I cannot imagine a life without imagination.

It is impossible not to be contemporary unless one has a time machine. I am not interested in recording what happened yesterday or today but what could happen at any time but never will. I delight in the unseen and the obscene as an appreciation of the obscene leads to a greater understanding of beauty and the exploration of the hidden self leads to a greater understanding of others.

Art is often defined as the search for truth and beauty and many an artist sets out to reveal the truth but quickly discovers that there is no such thing. He is left to give his honest impression of the lies which is