MPS Digital Photography and American Photographic Artists present an evening with Frank Ockenfels 3 (BFA 1983 Photography), who will show and discuss his most momentous photographs on the occasion of his exhibition at Fotografiska, “Frank Ockenfels 3: Introspection,” through Saturday, March 9.
As a highly visual astute and rapid observer of the world around him, photographer Frank Ockenfels 3 takes in a kaleidoscopic abundance of images that serve as artistic stimuli for his creative mind. A process of collision, collusion and collaboration is the genesis of his creativity, leading to the transformation of a photographic image into something else, a “re-presentation” of what he saw through the lens. It becomes a new form that communicates a new message, a new meaning; often conveying a more powerfully emotional visual statement.
FWO3 is propelled by a drive and curiosity to discover an image that is not yet known, at the same time he creates a visual language that speaks from the most primal and dark corners of his mind. He creates walking dreams, images that represent the darkest, least illuminated aspects of his unconscious projected on the person he has photographed. He has the courage to go way beyond the expected and the obvious to the breaking of boundaries of traditional photography. Ockenfels 3 does not play it safe, and as a result, he is very effective in evoking in the viewer aspects of their own psyche that they may not as yet have had any awareness. One cannot help but feel a resonance with the chaotic vibrancy of his mind. He leaves the imprint of his unconscious on the photographic image.
