The Garden Essay Collection

In this section you will find my primary work unified by the literary dialectic I embraced from the beginning, including poetic elements as intentional echoes, rhythm delineating form, a central narrative with abstract sychronicity.

This narrative has been the primary center of focus for most, if not all, of my large format work and covers decades of production.

The title "Garden" refers to the unspoken dialectic between nature and the selfaware human eye and hand that has underlain our existence from our species birth until the emergence of the Anthropocene and the consequent "Death of Nature" as the result of muddled human endeavor.

In my work I've navigated the edge of this dialectic, between Nature's always existent presence (call it "Truth" if you will) and human's unavoidable and defining, double-edged need to create (whether metaphysics, manipulated environments, or Art and the concept of "Beauty" itself).

On a stand-alone basis most of the images here are accessible and enjoyable. The nature of their interweaving and recognition of their unity, however, calls for some mental effort.

The associative connections between the images and sets is intentionally loose and not immediately obvious. To view them requires a silence of the editing censor and automatically assumptive responses.

Literacy in art history can help unravel their intricacies.

The site in totality includes most of my photographic work, from all perspectives. Commercial work, experiments (whether they were successful or not), along with art narratives, such as "Fractal Forest" and this "Garden" section. For myself, I have chosen to include all to avoid the pretentiousness of exclusion in Art Photography, and to demonstrate visual process.

A great deal of the work is in platinum print form of vintage quality and limited availability. Most can be reproduced in digital prints.
- Terry K. Thomson, 2019
Portland, Oregon