Thomas Durand

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I believe that we are all creative in whatever we do, and sometimes these creations are called art. I do not always know why I do my art but I feel that it feeds my soul and more often than not I feel better during and after I do this work. It can be a frustrating process at times but if I follow my heart the rewards far out weigh the challenges.

As a photographic artist, I enjoy the hunt of discovering a location for an image and working out its composition. I also enjoy the mystery of not always knowing exactly what an image will look like until the completion of the final print. My inspirations come from many places, which incorporate my thoughts on the human condition generally - on religion, nature, music, art history, American icons, social and current issues in addition to my own emotional demons and delights. With my fascination with light, texture, color, tones and personal aesthetics, I try my best to make a good photograph that evokes some sort of feeling.

Photographic images have always fascinated me. There is so much to be learned from a photograph and the person who takes it. They show me how things were and are today; how people lived long ago and right now; the ugly details and the amazing beauty of the world around us all through the creative imagination of the person behind the camera. These split seconds of time reflected in a still image gives me a place where I can escape from the world and be safe for a little while.

The sock monkey doll became a subject of my photography shortly after I became sober. At the time, these handmade, depression era, dolls were the perfect figures to express the seemingly never-ending, raw emotions I was experiencing at the time. As a friend of mine said trying to explain the monkey thing to a friend, "He took the monkey off his back and put it in front of the camera." This quote does seem fitting for some of the series and reminds me of the monkey in the self-portrait images, a previous series. Several years back, I began making the dolls myself, experimenting with wire armatures in order that the monkeys could hold positions in a more animated way than their original floppy counterparts.

Thomas received his MA from the The School of the Museum of Fine Arts. He currently lives in Randolph, Massachusetts.