Sous Les Etoiles The Gallery 560 Broadway #205 10012 New York États-Unis
Wendy Paton allows herself to disappear in order to let her subjects emerge from the night. “My experience is that people act differently at night. They let their guard down. They become who they really are, or they transform themselves into someone, real or imagined, that they want to be. There are seemingly no restrictions at night. Life seems to become more free flowing as opposed to how people tend to act in the light of day.” For Paton, the night is both solemn and cheerful, open to desire and mystery.
Her nocturnal portraits are both intimate and familiar. Intrigued by the mysterious and ever-changing nature of human personalities and their individual choices of expression, Paton was compelled to use people as her creative communication conduit. She did not plan out the details of this series in advance, she instead allowed the creative process to evolve. Visages De Nuit is a body of work consisting of a series of silver gelatin, black and white candid night images that are intended to provoke compelling and mysterious emotions of uncertainty.
Wendy Paton’s keen interest in photography began in 1981 while in the throws of a successful ground breaking career training and driving standard bred race horses in New York. Since being given a gift of what she describes as her first”real camera” it has been a circuitous route to her current career as a fine art photographer. The camera gave her the tool to document and share her artistic vision of the details of everyday life.
Paton’s work is in private collections both in Europe and the United States. She is the recipient of the 2009 Center National Editor’s Choice Photography Adward (Santa Fe, NM). Selected images have been exhibited in gallery and museum venues nationally.
Wendy Paton is currently working on two projects, both in black and white: Car Portraits is a study of a mixture of abstracts and high contrast details of old classic cars. Keep it Moving is a series of large-scale images depicting Paton’s interpretation of movement.