Igor Manko
Visual Discoveries
image: Igor Manko from the Beer Drinkers
About IGOR MANKO
Born in Poltava, Ukraine, in 1962
.
Taking photos since the age of 7 when my Dad gave me my first camera as a birthday present.
Educated as a linguist: Kharkiv National University
Living in Kharkov and running of a language school: International House Language Center
A member of the National Union of Fine Art Photographers of Ukraine since 1992.
Exhibitions: solo and group, in Kharkov, Kiev, Moscow, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Denmark.
"The importance of an artist is to be measured by the quantity of new signs which he has introduced
to the language of art." ( Henri Matisse)
Igor Manko Statement:
Because of my professional background linguistic metaphors come easy, so I will try to utilize one.
A photographic image is documentary. A camera lens reproduces objects in their trivial everyday relationships, in linear perspective, as seen by the human eye. It can thus be likened to a natural or ordinary language which is used for everyday communication, where words (objects) are connected by regular grammar rules.
In search of a new pictorial reality, fine art photography aspires to overcome the triviality of its documentary nature. In an artistic photographic image its elements are carefully selected and arranged to create the desired pictorial effect. It can be said that the language of art photography is a secondary language, like the language of poetry, which manipulates the ordinary language to achieve poetical expression, carefully selecting and arranging words according to rhythm, meter and rhymes.
Establishing new spatial relationships by combining in one picture things that are not normally combined and excluding accidental or superfluous elements that do not add to the sought-for meaning, upsetting the familiar Renaissance perspective by introducing artificial vanishing points of outdoor advertisement visuals or two-dimensional planes like walls to confuse perspective viewing are the grammar rules of this language.
Igor Manko, 2013
all images in this exhibition are under © Igor Manko 2013