Renee Cooley

Artist Statement

Photographing is an impulse. My eye catches something that resonates and I respond.

In the best of circumstances, it’s mindless, meaning that willfulness is suspended and gut intuition slips forward.

The thinking comes later when I’m editing and grouping the photos in collections that might have the same primary subject and/or a similar point of view or sensibility.

These submissions have a sense of singularity in common: a sole man and dog walking, a girl striving for the climb, and the umbrellas forming a canopy that, in a way, encloses the street and separates it from surroundings.

Artist Bio

When taking my first class in photography I was exposed to the work of Robert Frank, Walker Evans and other masters, and I began to realize what photography could be that was more than documentary. Perhaps, as Garry Winogrand said, it could be documentary with a personal point of view. I became hooked and changed my major from painting. Later, I earned an MFA in photography from Yale and continued to photograph for my own joy. My work has been exhibited over the years, but my primary interest is meeting my own challenge to surprise myself with the work.

Girl On The Rocks, Good Harbor Beach, Massachusetts, 2024