FinkArt is both the art and the process of artist Bill Fink
I have always been interested in the evolution of photography. Each previous photographic process extends photography forward in new ways, yet each photographic process from the past is still as beautiful and historically important as from its conception.
Since nearly everything that exists is a material, it would seem that materials are important. My process extends art photography into both time and matter because the images can be made of nearly any material. I can alter my emulsions to do many things, from making one-of-a-kind art prints, to art made of hair, ashes, plants, soil, flowers, pollen, commercial products, or nearly any dried material. There are no dangerous chemicals involved and the process leaves much to the imagination.
Since people collect artifacts of important people and events, what picture could be more important than one made of the person or product? Just as sound combines with the visual image in motion picture photography, my art combines with the actual material in the picture.
By the late 1980's after spending years of experimenting with different materials, I realized I could combine time and matter as one. This eventually led me to believe that ash photography would be an important way of presenting the issue of AIDS. A friend put me in contact with his neighbor, a flight attendant named Bob who was dying of AIDS who allowed me to make his picture with his eventual ashes. After his mother gave me some of Bob's ashes, I made the Photo Ash Memorial on glass plates. The only places that allowed me to exhibit at that time were a few gay and lesbian centers. A lot has changed with cremation and society in the last nearly sixteen years. I believe this art may finally be accepted as a way to make beautiful ash art pictures with instead of putting all the ashes in an urn or scattering all the ashes. There will always be ashes with a story to tell and an image to present them with.
Some people may say my work is just a process. I believe the process is an important part of making the art itself. When Jackson Pollock spattered paint to make beautiful art, the art occurred by the process of spattering paint. When the first pottery wheel was made we could have said it was only a process, but the process created a new kind of ceramic art. When the first person started blowing glass, we could have said it is only a process, but again, the process created a new kind of glass art. It has only been in the last century that photography began to become accepted as fine art, and real acceptance has only occurred in the last forty years. Sometimes it takes time for people to accept new ideas and new ways of thinking. My work and process have great potential in making very special one-of-a-kind pieces of art that no other conventional picture alone can achieve. When we look at the first pictures taken with any of the first photographic processes, regardless of the images, the pictures now become historical art. My process can also create historical art. If a picture is made of the actual product like the fabric of the Hindenburg, Spruce Goose, rock from the moon, or paint / metal from a historic car (as just a few of endless examples) and turned into an art print, the picture becomes more than an image -- it is in fact a photo time capsule that documents history by putting time and matter together to take us as close as we can get to the original.
I plan to eventually write a book documenting my decades of experiments so others can once again extend photography into a new realm beyond what I have done. But even so, my art and my processes will always be beautiful and historically important to me and those who appreciate my passion.
Sincerely, Bill Fink....FinkArt.com