Kristopher Arnold

Upward Erratic

In my work, Upward Erratic, I use the photographic medium to call attention to dimensionality, scale and the photograph as source material. Working between sculpture and the image, and building a tableau from altered printed images and found objects in the studio. Another part of my process is a wide range of digital manipulation of the images, this can vary from cleaning dust or constructing an entire scene through digital collage. I’m primarily interested in plain natural forms like leaves, grass, trees, etc and I use this reference in my work by cutting printed paper to abstract them or by collecting the objects themselves. Constructing a scene and then photographing it allows me to reveal my perception of my environment while I am symbolically representing a larger imagined world. Combining fabricated materials such as metal, plastic, and glass with natural materials presented in a single photograph creates a sort of tension, which then becomes a disorienting visual space. Photography can be about telling the truth but I’d rather twist it. Urban development and natural spaces colliding is happening all around us, so in my work I aim to show the beauty and chaos of it.