JOHN WOODRUFF

Interiors/Exteriors (the nature of nature) | I live in Maine, in an area of dense forests, high mountains, and dramatic coastlines that continually inspire and inform my work.

My recent series, Interiors/Exteriors (the nature of nature), explores nature through abstraction and its connection to the built environment. Scale, shape, color, pattern, and process come together to create dreamlike images with a sense of mystery.

The photographs begin with close observations of organic and inorganic elements (moss, lichen, volcanic rock, and other materials found in the landscape). Using an iPhone, I photograph them in a deliberately soft and imperfect way, then greatly enlarge the images. At this new scale, details that would normally remain imperceptible become fields of color, light, and geometric form.

The resulting photographs move between the familiar and the unknown. Their painterly quality challenges our expectations of what a photograph should be, while revealing unexpected structures within the natural world. Website