Artist’s Statement

I have always been a scientist. My specialties include land use planning and environmental science. I started using computerized Geographic Information Systems (GIS) as a means to accurately display the land, its uses, and management. Aerial photography is a tool I use to analyze layers of information about the earth.

I started to recognize that people are drawn to the high resolution aerial photography with terrain built into the image. Hands and fingers instinctively run over the surface of the maps to feel the texture of the hills and valleys. I started making maps captivated by the beauty of the earth unfolding in front of my eyes. I am instinctively drawn to the natural beauty of these living landscapes.

Mount Rainier along the Cascade Range in Washington was the first to catch my eye. This grand volcano was photographed countless times from different angles. I have not seen artistic images of the mountain taken from an aerial perspective. Using color aerial photography, I have built a mosaic of the terrain surrounding Mount Rainer which the photography is draped over. The final image conveys an incredible grandeur of the mountain when viewed from atop. The effect is stunning. Beauty and detail of the image compare to nothing I have ever seen.

I have completed other artwork of the volcanoes and mountains of Washington, along the Cascade Range in Oregon and California, some as far north as Alaska. Images from Idaho, Colorado and New Mexico, although different, are just as eye catching. My gallery of images keeps expanding.

Computer technology extended our ability to view the earth beyond the realm of traditionally captured side-view landscapes. Its vastness, seen from the unique perspective of aerial photography, is compelling. Earth images may appear alien and remote, sometimes, even unpleasing to the senses relying on the “obligatory love for the image”. They strike me as reaching to a deep-seated sense of connection with the earth we live on.

You are offered a vision of the face of the earth taken from far above. A certain distance placed between you and the object allows the effect of the earth’s grandeur explode into your mind.  You are immediately struck by the earth’s vulnerability and power.

This is how my art is created. I breathe life into the flat imagery by blending pieces into a seamless mosaic of a targeted image and creating relief behind it. The view acquires depth and perspective of a multi-dimensional precise map with an appeal of an unconventional art work.

View the earth through a perception which escapes traditional visual interpretation of the world around. This calls for a mature and unprejudiced mind. Take a closer look. Let your eye sink into the image. Feel the space captured inside the frame of a map. The image is not mute, it is silent. Approach it without anticipation of a trivial wonder. Feel your smallness, as if being viewed by the earth through the lens of eternity.

When looking at my art you leave the notion of geography behind confronted with visual evidence of time punctuated by geological events that keep shaping the face of the earth. The challenge is of a magnitude surpassing a traditional esthetic approach.

I am the artist, creating these images of the living earth for you.

- William Schlosser