Check out this new all-abstract show featuring photographs of imaginative and colorful scenes and patterns found in rusty old metal!  I have always loved studying patterns, colors, and textures in all things, but something about rust especially draws me in.  I will be presenting 20+ photographs I took at scrapyards, in old industrial sites, on corroded seawalls, to name a few locations...and I invite you to view them with an open mind and let your imagination play with what you see! Reception will be May 18 from 2-4, Gallery at the Metuchen Library.  Hope you can make it!

Some of the images can be found here: ABSTRACT COLLECTIONS

FROM THE PRESS RELEASE:

Rust: Alchemy and Imagination features abstract studies of discarded metal transformed by time and the elements.   Working with subjects from scrapyards, in old industrial sites, and on corroded seawalls and rusty dumpsters, Dickert’s photographs explore the rich colors, textures, and patterns that form as iron and steel are left to rust.  The images are often suggestive of landscapes, scenes, and even characters - in both subliminal and obvious ways. The pieces easily engage viewers and invite personal interpretation and response.

Artist Statement for Rust: Alchemy and Imagination

    Rust has always attracted me. Is the draw from our ancient DNA?  Our prehistoric ancestors used iron oxide for the first paint pigments.  Perhaps the response comes from the iron in our blood, in a kind of resonance? Rust also has symbolic power, suggesting the passing of time, invoking ideas about transformation, perhaps even bringing about guilt for not putting things away properly.  Wherever the origin, I return again and again to world of oxidation.  
    Beside my attraction to this subject, abstract photography like this keeps my skills sharp. We photographers both find and make compositions. The world is a continuous visual field, so it’s up to our imaginations to discover and project potential rectangles into it.  We see things, imagine design and potential story there, then click our shutters to turn framings into our photographs. Light, color, tones, emotional content, are always considered, but in abstract photography, design is paramount. These studies inform my wider photographic art as I become more sensitive to the elements that make strong compositions.
    To see more of my explorations in abstract photography, visit www.lightdance.org/abstract  
                        Jacki Dickert
                        Spring 2025

Below:  The artist with "The Alchemist" silk print