Stanley M. Kolber

A Brief Artist's Statement

I practiced law in New York City for many years. I was drawn some ten years ago to photography as a full time artistic undertaking. My work began in the natural world (of which I had long been a passionate observer). I had no interest in recording its well known and often documented predation and violence. Instead, I looked closely: I trained my lens on its inner and often overlooked beauty. Much of this work tends toward an abstract rendering of natural forms. This work has been purchased for corporate and private collections, selected for book covers, jury selected for the new wing of Children's Hospital in Boston, and, in the Summer of 2008, juried by Ms. Joan Young, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Guggenheim, along with thirteen other artists from among 400 submitting artists nationwide, into an all media show of twenty one works, two of which were mine, at Pleiades in Chelsea.

I continue to photograph wildlife. Three of my bird images were for two months in early 2009 on exhibition at the Connecticut River Museum in Essex, Connecticut.

In mid 2007 I also began shooting on New York City's West Side, often after dark and in the quieter hours. I brought to this work the shooting style and sensibility honed in the natural world.

In 2011 my work appeared in juried exhibitions at the Salmagundi Club in New York City, and at the Mystic Art Center in Mystic, CT. And fourteen images, drawn from my new Fishing Fleets Series, will be included in a juried Holiday Photography Exhibition at the Gallery at Firehouse Square in New London, CT opening November 4, 2011. This Series, on which work continues, began a year ago in Cape May, New Jersey when the light of a crystalline late afternoon set several scallopers at Fisherman's Wharf aglow in soft color and sharp relief, and has since taken me to commercial fishing ports on both the East and West coasts.

Old Lyme, CT

October 2011