J. Marquette Romeu

I have been fascinated by photography since I was a child. My father, a professional photographer, took me into his darkroom and taught me how to use all his “magic potions" to conjure up a beautiful image of a moment in time that was long gone, but would exist forever on paper. Full of light and life but frozen in time, people and places lived on, never to change. It was light that created these images and gave them life. When I discovered that I myself could play with light to accomplish different effects and atmospheres, I became forever fascinated by photography.

Digital photography has revealed a whole new world of imagery, yet my work has from the beginning been about creating art from the images that exist as both my own memories of taking the photos, as well as in permanent digital form.

In my current work, I explore the role of memory and its capacity to recreate impressions of a place and time. Memories are not logical. They are impressions of a moment, a day, a place, a feeling. Memories are fluid, images overlap and blend, perspectives are skewed, no rules apply. When memories are transformed into an artwork, one may wonder, “What is going on here?" … Sometimes more is revealed by a second look than by a first impression.

My goal is to recreate memories. My images are born from multiple photographs of the same location which are transformed into a single image that evokes a unique and mysterious moment in time.