Marita Meyer
Artist Statement

**I just moved to Denver 4-5-14 (roughly 2 mos. ago) from Wichita, Kansas.**
***Looking to work with local talent on a TFP basis in order to rebuild my reputation here in Denver.***

I remember being encouraged as a child to use my imagination.  Make-believe is a big element in the work I produce.  Pretending through the lens of the camera and making up a world for the duration of a shoot is exhilarating to me.  A fantasized world, in which the model and I can share creative ideas and desires, also helps a lot in developing the model/photographer relationship.  Photography in the style of editorial and fashion is the scene and the models are the players.  This relationship between model and me and the world of make-believe is why I take pictures.  Photography for me is about capturing a very personal experience shared between the model and myself.  A mutual bonding experience and out of that hopefully a true relationship.  I am incredibly interested in forming even if it’s only for a short time a real friendship with my models.  I am amazed at the possible out-comes from being invited into someone else’s life when they want me to capture their picture: What I discover about them and what they discover about themselves.  My ideas about my photography include; community, one that maybe for a time I would like to be apart of, or perhaps, building a community myself, of friends that I am always working with.  Warhol once said that everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.  I suppose that this symbiotic relationship, photographer to model, would support Warhol’s statement. 

There is a desire in adults to continue to experience the world of fantasy.  I use dominant colors as a symbol to further explore my ideas about an imaginary world. For example, I choose to use an element of red in every photograph to illustrate the link between flesh, blood, life and humanity.  I use other colors such as black to symbolize the emptiness and the unknown we all relate to, and white as a reference to purity and faith.  In using these colors, I also hope to create a warm inviting relationship between subject and viewer. 

Color is also about provoking contradictions of innocence and sexuality. Using lights to create warm and fleshy tones are key to experiencing the feelings mentioned above.  Warm light gives the flesh a more glowing tonality and gives me the opportunity to create an appeal for the viewer.  Composition in my photographs is about contradictions enchantment or conviction in relationship to the viewer and subject.  I choose to crop tightly to create tension.  This tension is also about contradictions.  The contradictions within the relationship involving of subject and viewer, is the composition completely inviting to the viewer or a closed composition on the subject leaving no room for the viewer.       

Photographers who are influential in my practice are also exploring this type of relationship, such as Annie Leibovitz and Nan Goldin.  The two are very different in their approach.  Leibovitz photographs represent an insertion into a celebrity’s life yet allowing the viewer to relate to them in a very personal way.  In comparison, Nan Goldin’s friends are her subjects, thus turning them into the celebrities.  What I value about these artists is what they have in common. They ex  plore and share the intimate relationship between photographer and model, just as I do and hope to continue to do as my art grows.

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