Geological Art Photography

Joel Simpson’s work moves away from standard landscapes—sky above, earth below, illusion of perspective, all-important quality of light—to create strong images from rock formations: rock surfaces, cave formations, and natural sculptures. The appeal is similar to that of Surrealist and Abstract Expressionist painting. There are three types:

Rock surfaces, short-field captures (“miniscapes”), unlike conventional landscapes, are flat-picture plane images, possessing relief but lacking perspective and [mostly] excluding sky. Without a sense of place or virtual depth, they invite the viewer to imagine visual associations in the configurations (pareidolia), similarly to the work of late Surrealists, such as Roberto Matta, and Abstract Expressionists such as Willem de Kooning.

Earlier examples of this kind of approach may be found in the work of Aaron Siskind, Minor White, Andreas Feininger, Ernst Haas, and Heinz and Elizabeth Bertelsmann among others, but none of them seem to have traveled extensively in search of of unusual formations, as Simpson has been doing for over a decade.

Cave formations draw on the same principles, but they tend to be three-dimensional so usually include more depth. There is no sky and often no sense of place.

Natural sculptures are discrete rock formations. Their images generally include sky and setting, but the focus is not scenic, but rather on the formation. The same invitations to the viewer’s imagination apply as above.

Text by Joel Simpson

Publication: Recent book by Joel Simpson, Playgrounds for the Mind: The Art of Geological Photography (2021) is completely devoted to geological art photography. Many of these images may also be found on joelsimpsonart.com. Samples of such images may also be found in Joel Simpson’s 2019 Nautilus-Gold-Award-winning book Earthforms: Intimate Portraits of Our Planet (earthforms.net).

Exhibition: 23-26 September 2021, Other Art Fair Presented by Saatchi Art in Los Angeles https://www.theotherartfair.com/la/