Artist Biography:
Self-taught in traditional photographic practice, dating to the 1960’s, David Duchow switched to the less-polluting digital in the late 1990’s. In 2001 he began to flip images, creating a Rorschach-like mirrored result. Central to his work is the harmony of music, or spoken word, and image. See “Season in Hell” or “Summer”, amongst the videos at You Tube, for examples of this. Steve Kilbey recites Rimbaud in Season in Hell, to a series of altered Duchow self-portraits. He also commissioned David to make videos for a recent album and projected his images on a large screen during concerts in Australia. Kilbey’s art-rock group, The Church, debuted David’s work as a backdrop in concert at the Sydney Opera House in July of 2003.
To quote Steve Kilbey, from his blog, “The Time Being” (of August 31, 2008):
“In mirror images of nature David locates an incredible symmetry.
Gods and devils appear; Hindu deities hidden in the patterns of a tree’s roots….
The images merge slowly into each other.
They dissolve, producing more illusions and half-sightings….”
The Video:
Friends Are Gone was made in May of 2009, to the song of this title, by Steve Kilbey and Martin Kennedy.
Photography:
01 A Face in The Crowd: a photograph of ice, with dead bulrush reeds imbedded.
02 Street Seen NYC : it’s 1972, streets of New York City… mirrored and altered…. Elements of drawing. Shades of sepia.
03 Montreal Street Seen 0017/6: this image began as a straight photo of a butcher in his shop window, with fluorescent lights above. The original was transformed, through hundreds of steps in Photoshop. The butcher isn’t discernable any more… replaced by an imaginary figure, seemingly in a state of prayer, in the centre of this Rorschach image.
04 The New Mexico Desert: summer sky, pastel, tinted. The 1980’s; forays into desolate spaces with captivating skies.
05 At Nature’s alter: My rural “back yard”, Fred’s pasture.
06 Radium Hotsprings, British Columbia: flipped positive and negative, pastel interplay and counterpoint.
07 Nature’s alter #2: Forest floor vegetation…. Certain elements emphasized. The light falls a certain way.. and then the appearance of a head, torso, arms raised.
08 McGill Campus… dream image of decades past: I was commissioned in the late 1980’s to photograph certain McGill University buildings. This is one of those photographs, mirrored vertically.
For more information regarding David Duchow’s work:
His website: http://www.artman8764.com/index.htm
You tube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/artman8764
Not What You Say Video: http://www.vimeo.com/2342083
File Under Travel Video: http://www.vimeo.com/2341711
Photos and Video © David Duchow 2001-2009
Music in the Video © Steve Kilbey and Martin Kennedy 2009
