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03/31/2023 06:03 AMLocal artist Joe King spent a career in the corporate world but always had an eye toward creativity. He’s channeled his love of the shutter to create photo mosaic compositions that are truly unique and compelling.
Several of Joe’s works are currently in Branford as part of the ongoing James Blackstone Memorial Library’s rotating “Artists Circle,” sharing free exhibits in the upstairs rotunda. Joe’s exhibit opened in March and continues through April.
Joe says his career in finance didn’t exactly prepare him for life as an artist, but his daily train commute from his former home in Fairfield to Manhattan allowed him the freedom to explore his passion.
“I had four hours of development time [going] back and forth into Manhattan every day [which] gave me time on the computer to explore. I always liked photography and played with it, but the aft aspect combined with the photography finally clicked for me, and I really wanted to create photo mosaics. What I found is that 15% love it, 15% hate it, and everyone else doesn’t know what the heck it is,” Joe says jokingly. “So, with that time on the train, I was able to get pretty good at it.”
Joe was fascinated by the history of mosaic and how he could adapt that to a modern audience. Mosaic is a medium using small objects to create a larger image. The art form is thousands of years old and was a central form of expression for many cultures, including Rome and Mesopotamia, where the art dates back at least 6,000 years.
Photo mosaic artists use thousands of miniaturized photos to render a larger image. From a distance, the larger image predominates, but up close, the miniaturized photos overtake the eye’s mind and become foremost, Joe says.
Despite the use of computers, Joe emphasizes there’s no algorithm he uses and no computer-generated designs. The art is all his own. A “really good mosaic” takes at least 400 unique images and up to 2,000 photos, he says.
“I do develop software, so I did do some of my own customization and optimization to know what to do, and though this work is computer-assisted, it can’t create a design, it can’t create a shape,” he says. “So, if I’m looking for the tip of George Harrison’s nose or the screw on a guitar pickup, I have to find it. You need to take pictures, and lots of them, to ensure I have what I need. So, the skill [is] in knowing what to create, in terms of shapes.”
Among commissions and projects, he’s completed several pieces for local non-profits and stained-glass restoration at area churches. Joe’s project for The Kate in Old Saybrook used images of Katharine Hepburn from the theatre’s collection to create an image of the building. The resulting artwork, “Katharine Hepburn Cultural Center,” is among those on view at the Blackstone.
To render a quality photo mosaic, individual photos must be “selectively cropped and edited to create a sufficient amount of diverse shapes to render all the edges of the overall image, along with all the hues and shadows required to render the overall image,” Joe explains.
Utilizing original photos taken at “Play It Loud—Instruments of Rock & Roll,” a 2019 exhibit at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Joe crafted several photo mosaics incorporating instruments used by rockers and “guitar gods” to reimagine the iconic instruments in a unique way, he says. The Blackstone exhibit includes Joe’s creations of Eddie Van Halen’s “Frankenstein” guitar, Jimi Hendrix’s “Love Drops” Flying V Gibson guitar, Keith Richards’ 1957 Gibson Les Paul custom guitar, and Ringo Starr’s Ludwig drum set.
The Blackstone exhibit also displays Joe’s “Acoustic Guitar” photo mosaic (built from 2,000 photos of a single acoustic guitar) and his compilation of 10 different original Gibson Les Paul guitar model images gathered into one instrument, “Gibson Les Paul Collection 1952 to 2013.”
“It is fascinating to me to utilize state-of-the-art digital technology, old fashioned patience, and electronic ‘scissoring’ and ‘pasting’ to recreate an art form that is 6,000 years old and stands as one of the earliest sophisticated art forms of mankind,” says Joe.
Senior Staff Writer Pam Johnson provided story information on King’s exhibit at the Blackstone Library. For more information on Joe King and his work, visit elegantlensphotography.com