In 2012, an anonymous box of photographs was donated to my high school art program. These photographs were obviously taken by a professional photographer and captured scenes from all over the world. The only information provided with the photos was a note on top of the box that read: “To Stephanie, you need this.” These photographs fascinated me. They are beautiful images that captured people and scenery from across the globe. My first area of study in college was Anthropology and I spent 15 years as a European Tour guide, which I feel made my connection to the images even deeper. I only found one name in the pile of over 500 photos, Jean Dow. Which to me sounded like Jane Doe, this mystery woman from the past sent me on a journey to find inspiration in the present.
I believe there is great power in viewing and reflecting on photographs, and I had a deeply personal reaction to Jean’s photographs from the moment I saw them. I believe artists project an aspect of themselves into their artwork, seeing the world not as it is, but as they are. I find Jean’s photographs to be incredibly beautiful and composed in a way that intimately captures the personal lives of her subjects while simultaneously telling the story of her own personal journey in these distant lands. For me, beauty lies in the contrast of life’s experiences and the subtle shades that color our shared human experience. The fact that I will never know the subjects of Jean’s photographs personally does not mean that I am unable to relate to them, but rather presents an opportunity to try to bridge this gulf of time and space with empathy and imagination. This concept is the driving motivation for my thesis, the attempt to communicate to the viewer how beautiful our world may be if every individual tried a little harder to appreciate and empathize with difference and experience rather than persecuting it or approaching difference from a place of fear. The idea of taking something lost, like these photographs, and breathing new life into them is incredibly exciting and artistically challenging for me. To experience Jean’s journey through her art form, while creating my own artistic counterpoint along side hers, is creatively inspiring and exciting. I am not trying to perfectly paint these photographs, and I do very little photo editing. It is not my intention to capture every last wrinkle and line, rather I strive to evoke emotion and curiosity from the viewer with my paintings, just as Jean’s work made me feel when I first saw it.