Photography & Digital Art

 Collage & Digital Art

“You don’t take a photograph, you make it.”

Ansel Adams

 

Finishing and Ordering

 
 

For ordering a print I use a shipping tube

Where my work can be purchased

There are several platforms where my work is for sale and they are listed below. You may also order prints and framed pieces here. For medium to smaller sizes I do my own printing on a Epson Stylus Pro

The work is then hand printed on Hahnemühle fine art papers using a Ultrachrome inkset.

if the work is to be framed I use Air Dried mat smooth paper dry mounted onto 3 mil white Gator board installed into a 1” white wood edge float frame. If my collector wishes, I use a white rectangle or square frame made from recycled materials finished in a smooth Bauhaus-style frame. The artwork is in three sizes: small, medium, and large, with a 2-4 inch white space. Shipping is free if only the print is ordered. Collectors can pick up the work locally or have it shipped. Order and shipping times vary from 3-5 business days.  

PILOTENKUECHE INTERVIEW

LEIPZIG GERMANY

Marc VanDermeer: vita brevis, ars longa

Multi-media art worlds created by Marc VanDermeer are at the heart of his legacy. Having survived severe cancer, the American artist turned from abstract painting to digital photography and later to mixed media collage and sculpture. The insight into the fragility of human existence was shocking beyond belief. Now you are here, and then tomorrow you are not. Hence, Marc’s art is destined to transcend death, contribute to life, and leave something behind.

Marc’s background

His mother, Carol Levy-Vandermeir, was an actress and an artist. Her vision was the greatest influence on her son. She taught Marc to draw at the age of five. Together, they visited museums and galleries. That’s where Marc learned to see, to shape his unique vision. He learned how to interpret the lines and colors, what the basic rules of composition were, etc. His mother taught him inspiration, poetic perception, and art theory awareness.

Later Marc studied at Philadelphia Colleges of the Arts (now called UArts). He entered initially as a painter, however graduated with a BFA in Film in 1976. 10 years later, Marc founded CAM, an international production company specializing in music videos, shorts, and TV commercials. It was a good learning process in terms of management and communication, and also a steady financial success. Nevertheless, he still gravitated to painting and photography in contrast to producing lucrative advertisements. The struggle with cancer was a turning point. Marc understood that he needed to make his life matter in a timeless perspective. He decided to voice his message for the future through art. Abstract photography was a natural means to express this mission.

Why digital photo?

At the start of his artistic path, back in the last quarter of the XX century, Marc felt very impatient. He always wanted to make fast experiments with his artistic instincts, to rush into excessive productivity. However, the technologies at that time were not designed for such use.

Mass-market development of cameras made it an available, fast and mobile way to explore the world through images. First, instant Polaroid shots, and then digital photography opened up huge new scope for visual investigation. And in 2002-2003, the rise of Photoshop made it possible to manipulate images.


 

Ray K. Metzker, a legendary American photographer who taught for many years at the Philadelphia College of Art, trained the artist to choose complexity over simplicity. Ray’s black and white cityscapes are well-known for the shadowplay, architectural variations and challenging connections. Marc took over this devotion to technical experimentation and texture research

Marc believes that art is always a kind of modified reality. The facts are subject to artistic interpretation and the physical items lend themselves to playing with their color and design. Thus, Marc is sensitive to the physical qualities of paint and pixels. He is a passionate sky observer; he follows the air motion and studies the clouds, which appear to be yet another illusion of stable forms and explicit associations. Abstract expressionism by Gerhard Richter, Robert Motherwell, and Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg’s postmodern collages, and Rene Magritte’s surrealist fantasies are the strongest influences in Marc’s artistic style.

Art is an illusion 

Marc works on a daily basis, but potential scenarios usually differ. The artist either creates something in one of his three studios (painting, sculpture, and computer), or explores the surroundings and shoots more source material. He is also very accurate in defining his professional goals. Marc is looking forward to breaking new ground, participating in international residencies, and establishing new collaborations. He explains this approach by forcing himself out of his comfort zone, exposing his art to a fresh look and critique, learning more, and avoiding the path of least resistance. 

His technique is focused on the overlapping layers and metaphorical roughness. Through the multiple modification versions, the original images lose detail but benefit from the new associations and colors.

“Metropolis” (2003) is probably the most significant artwork in this regard. Impressive Photoshop experiments with the picture of a home screen door generated in the other dimension. Marc also cut up different train graffiti fragments and shuffled them with his painting interventions to create this body of complex appearance. The collage pattern circulation is reminiscent of 15 puzzle sliding game tiles. Having been alternating the texture combinations for half a year, the artists intended to represent the sum of unreachable states. 

Urban landscapes

Marc is fascinated with how time ages some things. His artworks are to a great extent linked to texture as a combining principle. In the cities, there are hundreds of walls and other surfaces. Over the years of public utilization, these objects acquire inimitable consistency.

For instance, the advertisement pieces in NY subway are being continuously painted or glued over, resulting in a deep multilayered sequence. In a similar way, Marc’s photography surrealistically manipulates billboards and road signs.  “Franklyn St” is a perfect example of the asphalt road turning into a wavy sea surface, and woodlands and waterfalls peering out of the skyscrapers’ windows.

Vita brevis, ars longa

Marc speaks of art as something he has to do. It is organic like breathing and walking; it is one of the core cognitive, emotional, and technical activities. Art can take you away from yourself and help to become a part of a greater process. Creativity and persistence allow you to be involved in something else that is much larger than your own life span. Marc puts himself before the philosophical essence of individual presence in the environment. He seeks a satisfactory angle to look at eternity.

“Legacy and relevance were of paramount importance to me when faced with my possible demise. There is a permanence to my art legacy”.

 

written by Andrii Myroshnychenko

 

 

Art has been a part of Marc's DNA since birth. His mother, a New York-based artist, sculptor, and teacher, continually exposed him to the world of galleries and museums between their home in SoHo and summers spent in Provincetown, MA. He began practicing early, attending high schools specializing in art and summer workshops in Provincetown, and studying art history in Florence, Italy. In 1971 he enrolled at The Philadelphia College of Art, initially as a painter but ultimately graduating with a BFA Film in 1976. He studied under photographer Ray K. Metzker, whose "composites" — large-scale assemblages of printed film strips — have remained a significant influence throughout his career.

Upon graduating, Marc worked as a location scout and assistant cameraman on commercials and industrial shorts. He flourished in this field, rising within a few years to become a renowned director's rep and executive producer, representing award-winning photographers, production companies, and feature film directors for TV ad campaigns. In 1986, Marc founded CAM, an international production company specializing in music videos, shorts, and TV commercials. Throughout this professional period, painting and photography remained a strong passion for him, and he continued to practice and attend night classes to refine his craft.

In 2001, Marc was diagnosed with stage 3 multiple myeloma. His prognosis was poor. He stepped back from his company and enrolled in an aggressive treatment protocol out of UAMS in Little Rock, AR. While undergoing this intensive treatment, Marc renewed his devotion to his artistic work. He taught himself Photoshop and began taking digital photographs. Between lengthy hospital visits and rounds of chemotherapy, he carried a digital camera everywhere he went, capturing a copious amount of landscape and urban images. This daily practice and immersion in digital media have formed the basis for his more recent work. His signature piece from this period, a large multi-layered photo collage titled "Metropolis" (2003), is the best example of Marc's digital-collage style. The 40" x 72" piece comprises over fifty layers of images merged with hand-painted elements.

In 2003, Marc was invited to his first group show at the Agora Gallery in Chelsea. He has been included in multiple juried awards shows nationally and internationally, including Silvermine, Art in the Northeast, The Spectrum Show, and the Faber Birren National Color Award Show.

For Marc, art has always been about process and catharsis. He is drawn to the tension between the organic and spontaneous generation of an image and the meticulous, exploratory practice of augmentation as a form of metamorphosis and rebirth. He appreciates the ubiquity and accessibility of digital media, which he sees as both humbling and a constant challenge, to tease the meaning out of images, layering them together to create something that wasn't there before, making them into something more than themselves.

 

Statement

I started my art journey wanting to be an abstract painter but changed my major to film. I was fortunate to have studied photography under the late renowned photographer Ray K Metzker at The Philadephia College of Art (1971-1975). Metzker was known for his experimental B&W and assemblages of printed film strips. His style taught me that photography is a gateway without boundaries. I use my camera as a paintbrush, photographing colors, textures, and abstract shapes. Ironically, my early work was with collages, heavily influenced by the abstract expressionist Robert Rauchenberg. Today my collage work combines photography and digital painting.  As an artist, I continue to venture and experiment, fulfilling my dream as a boy to break out of the material and devote myself to the artistic journey. Marc built his career around exec producing  TV commercials and videos and opening his agency, “CAM,” in 1987, representing award-winning directors, production, post, and visual effects companies. In 2001 he began the process of leaving his company to have more time to make art. Marc has won multiple awards for both his photographs and collage mixed media work.

 

Contact Us

Please contact Marc for inquiries on custom wall art painting, canvas artwork, and fine art commissions

 

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 Summer 2023 CV. Summer 2023 CV

 Here’s Where my Work can be Found

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