Bridged Field: Found-photo Drawings

Artist John Beech is known for his innovative transformations of the seemingly mundane into startling works of originality. Proficient in several different mediums, in Bridged Field: Found-Photo Drawings he focuses on self-manipulated photographs. Since 2007 he has collected over 600 found photographs and applied his singular touch to each, letting the patterns and textures within the photograph become the grounds upon which he creates entirely new works of mysterious beauty. Presented here are 92 such pieces.

Notable for their range of materials (oil enamel, vinyl paint, ink, pencil, and marker pen), the drawings display a diversity of methods to apply marks directly onto the surface of the prints, in some cases predominantly covering the photographic information, in others emphasizing and punctuating visible elements in the photograph. Deliberate paint passages often exist alongside accidental marks or gestures and incidental imagery may come to the forefront when the primary subject of the photograph has been obscured.

“Beech wants to jog us out of perceptual habit. His idiom is the poetics of normal wear and tear."
—Kenneth Baker, The San Francisco Chronicle