HELL BENT TO KICK THE EDGES: CHELSEA ELLIS AND TODD WATTS AT MMPA PORTLAND

When I say, “photographic arts,” what or who comes to mind? Annie Leibovitz? Ansel Adams? Alfred Stieglitz? Richard Avedon? Different genres. Different styles. Different expressions. The two artists who are currently exhibiting works at the Maine Museum of Photographic Arts in Portland are creating work that has osmosed into a totally different expression of the genre. They are photographers, no doubt, and both have interest in sculpture. But all assumptions end there.

Todd Watts works are represented in major museum collections — including the Art Institute of Chicago, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fogg Museum and Yale University Art Gallery. In his early days in art school, his interest was sculpture. He didn’t own a camera until after he graduated, and he said that he’s been learning photography ever since.

He began making photos — he insists that he doesn’t take photos, he makes them — in traditional black-and-white materials, but the world of color began calling his name and he became immersed in a process that he invented.

Watts began making color images using a process based on materials available from Kodak. He was invited by Hewlett Packard to see the earliest versions of digital printing at about the same time Kodak discontinued dye transfer materials. It was clear to him that he was looking at the future. Although he mostly uses analog cameras, his photographs are printed digitally.

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