TIM PORTER
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ABOUT THE ARTIST
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INTRODUCTION
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C.V.
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PUBLICATIONS
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LINKS
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ADDITIONAL CONTEXT
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WORKS
Tokyo Gardens
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ABOUT THE ARTIST
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INTRODUCTION
When Tokyo resident and photographer Tim Porter names his series of color palettes "Ether" it of course shouldn’t be taken literally but rather as a reference to the ethereal. This we in turn associate with the heavens’ unending expanse in which the vapor gains an ethereal essence. With his title, Porter wants to make us aware of the fragility and fleetingness of the poetry of noiseless sensuality inherent to the color compositions – and of the multiplicity within these reductive images. Like when a piece of music calls for "Pianissimo," we should sharpen our eyes to "hear" these pictures’ ethereal tones, which can touch our innermost selves.
Tim Porter is a well-known, internationally exhibited photographer. Born in Washington, DC in 1946, he studied literature and philosophy at the University of Virginia. After moving to Canada in the late 1960s he began to photograph Montreal. His travels took him to Asia, the South Pacific, and finally to Japan, where he now lives and, among other things, directs Tokyo Photographic Workshops.
His second series in the LUMAS portfolio embodies Porter’s second passion: the form and diversity of Japanese gardens. Consistently executed in black-and-white, Porter shows these garden oases as artificial scenes arranged by human hand. In these he masterfully brings together the theatrical with the longing for the primitive and natural, which stirs in us a mixture of impressions and feelings that allows us, too, to take long walks in the parks and gardens where "Eden" – that garden of gardens – for a moment feels near.
