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Monday, November 26, 2007

David Mendelsohn - Master Of Simplicity

David Mendelsohn's work is a master's composition of vivid color, finely proportioned space, surrealist sculpture and outlandish humor—plus everything in between

He continues with a similar response when asked whether he plies any sort of method to creating his images. “I really can't address DNA, real-world experience, or the combination of both,” he says. “I'm not aware of any formula. I have no clue. I simply know what attracts me, and I seem able to condense what I'm looking at into its potential rather quickly. I've never quite lost my design background, and it seems to manifest itself in my work. I'm attracted to the crisp and clean and strive to eliminate any unnecessary information, intentionally distilling my work down to fairly basic elements. I'm also a large fan of formal composition and compelled to keep a certain visual harmony within the frame.”

Even stranger, and despite Mendelsohn's full-on embrace of digital capture, he uses the real world to manufacture the striking visual elements in otherwise other-worldly images. From beginning to end, he places an emphasis on shooting the image the way he imagines it, using digital manipulation only to gently tweak in post.

“Any art form is a journey of self-discovery,” he says, “and to discount anything is to deny the imagination. I've seen and admired brilliant work produced in this manner, and perhaps in five years I'll be sitting in front of my monitor in a bathrobe, looking a bit like Howard Hughes and working in a completely new direction. Who knows?”

But in the meantime, if the shot Mendelsohn has in mind means a shopping list that includes spray paint, swimming flippers and red fishnet stockings, then so be it.

Mendelsohn's mastery of elements, of the distinct relationships between mood, lighting and color, leads to images where everything that's seen, and unseen, becomes equally as important. And the conscious choices he has made may turn out to be an expression of the unconscious collective, proving that sometimes the most complex problems require the simplest solutions.

To see more of David Mendelsohn's photography, visit www.davidm.com.