About Me

  Vancouver B.C. has been my home since I first laid eyes on it in 1974. It’s a city of remarkable contrasts and provides a visually rich and inspiring environment for an artist or photographer. It’s Dickensian alleys and rain forested valleys compete almost equally for my cameras attention. I find them both to be visually compelling. The  location and juxtaposition of these two diverse landscapes, both within minutes of my home, inevitably influences my subject matter. The city keeps me interested and engaged in the human condition, while the local mountains, ocean, and temperate rainforest provide an easy and stunningly beautiful escape from it all. I hope you enjoy my view and take on things. Thanks for taking the time to view my work.   Terry

About The Robots

   Despite their status in the past as the most modern of appliances and advanced technology, I’ve always enjoyed the ironically primitive aesthetic the toy robots of the 50’s and 60’s have. Many resemble Tiki or African sculpture. Robots have also come to provide a good metaphor for our own lives and conditions. They’ve been personified in countless novels and movies in popular culture. Some robots have even become iconic heros in this technology obsessed world of ours. Initially, the robots I made were inspired and patterned on the toy robots of the past.

  They’ve evolved over the years as I attempt now to create them with personalities, and try to include as many generations of technology as I can in them. Some contain a hundred years of different electronic generations, from vacuum tubes to micro chips. The raw materials are found mostly in flea markets and thrift stores, and many of the parts I use are extracted from some of the vast quantities of cast off techno junk I find strewn about everywhere here in Vancouver.  Metaphorically I guess you could say they have come to represent our cast off techo world, where last year’s model TV has become as disposable as a bic lighter once was.

   As I pulled apart countless old clocks, radios and TV’s looking for interesting parts, I started to notice how similar the fractal like complexity and patterns I see in nature, so closely resemble many of the patterns I see in circuit boards and other electronics. And vice versa. Consequently I now view technology as much more organic in nature than I have in the past. That realization at times has me alternating between excitement, and fear.

Digital Photography

   What can I say, like millions of others, I love it. There’s a whole new photography revolution sweeping the planet and it’s based on one’s and zero’s. If someone would have tried to explain the concept of photoshop to me back in the eighties, when my hands were often immersed in harsh chemicals, spending hours in a darkroom to create a single good image, and at considerable expense, I would have dismissed it as some utopian dream ! I could never have imagined such a powerful and engaging tool for photography then. However, there is a down side. When you can change a photograph one pixel at a time at home in minutes, well, let’s just say don’t believe everything you see. All photos lie in the digital age.

    Art often imitates nature  and I like the visual complexity and energy that results from combining symmetry with fractal like patterns. For me it adds a cosmic element to a composition. I use this visual element often in my photos.  Another of my favorites is the serendipitous juxtaposition of unexpected elements in a photo. It produces a surreal quality  I’ve always found engaging and thought provoking. Photoshop, no chemicals, no expensive paper and film, no technical limitations, just good clean fun.