Douglas Mesney

The renaissance of late-60’s New York City was Mesney’s world when his first studio opened. “Early on the alchemy of the darkroom intrigued me. I coined the term “Atomicolor” to describe the wild colors that marked my style. “says Douglas Mesney. Nikon took note of Mesney and wrote about his work. That publicity served as an endorsement and his crazy colors became more popular.

 

Mesney would soon morph from photographer to photo-illustrator. His mentors were Josef Karsh and Rysazard Horowitz.

 

In the 70’s his work jumped off the printed page and onto the

silver screen. Soon the studio was full of slide projectors and was renamed “Incredible Slidemakers.” The studio became famous in the AV industry.

 

In 1984 Saab Automobile brought Mesney to Sweden and he ended up staying almost 10 years. When the European Community formed Mesney moved the studio to Brussels.

 

After the first Gulf War, Mesney moved back to the United States and settled on Vashon Island, near Seattle, Washington. He now splits his time between Vashon Island and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

 

Douglas describes his technique as painting with pictures. Back in the 30’s and 40’s it was called “picture assembly.” In the 50’s and 60’s they called the process “photo strip-in.” Now, his work combines those basics with whatever else it takes to get the effect that he wants..

 

“My work presents the world as people remember it… with the same enhanced coloration and fractalization. By fractalization I mean the symbolism of memory.”

Without looking at one, think of a tree. You can't remember any specific tree or anything specific about the tree. Instead you remember an iconic mental image of that kind of tree, in great detail.

Your mind creates fractals as its code. Memories are built as assemblies of fractals… collections of image icons.

People look at his work and say: "it's a photo." but it is not. Instead, it is a collection of image fractals presenting a photo-realistic vision of an imagined world… the world the way he wants to remember it, almost too beautiful to be real.