Description
Don Porter, a lifelong California artist, was taught and mentored by some of the finest: Gui Ignon in Ojai, California – at the University of California, Berkeley, by Elmer Bischoff, Jerrold Ballaine, Richard Diebenkorn, Robert Hartman, Peter Voulkos – and many others along the way.
Winner of numerous awards, Porter has exhibited his photographs, paintings and sculptures in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, North Carolina, Los Angeles, and Palm Springs. His photographs and paintings are collected internationally.
Coincidental with his career as an artist, Don has been an award-winning architect and builder in Nevada and California, where, beginning in the 1970’s, he helped pioneer sustainable design and recycling practices.
In addition to painting and traditional photography, Porter’s most recent work involves photographing temporary sculptures. As he manipulates various inanimate objects and introduces them to baths of pigmented liquids, he subjects the ever-changing configurations to layers of light (filtered, reflected and refracted). He photographs these fabrications as they transform, dissolve, disintegrate … cease to be what they were. Although he includes some color correction and cropping for composition, Porter does not use Photoshop or the like. “Intentionally designing the sculptures to transcend a preceding moment of existence,” Don explains “I record that exact instance of transformation as a requiem for each moment that was, all the while celebrating the impermanence of all that exists …. did exist.”
Proceeds to benefit the Los Angeles Artist Association, Los Angeles, CA