mbmanray's photostream  

About me:

I've somehow always been attracted to a certain beauty in imperfection. I'm not really sure I even believe in the concept of perfection. It seems flawed.

Is the ART world really a meritocracy, or is it as corrupt, biased and prejudicial as any other plutocracy?

I keep going back to Ralph Steiner's quote in Bruce Grant's Profile:

"Eventually I discovered for myself the utterly simple prescription for creativity; be intensely yourself. Don’t try to be outstanding; don’t try to be a success; don’t try to do pictures for others to look at — just please yourself."

Amen!

I like chaos theory and scientificated stuff!

Most of my images are based on true stories!

I'm allowed to touch the art in most museums!



Favorite movies:

Boogie Woogie / Blade Runner / Kick-Ass / Kill Bill I / Kill Bill II

Favorite quotes:

"Protect me from what I want." Jenny Holzer - Truisms

"I say play your own way. Don’t play what the public wants. Play what you want and let the public pick up on what you are doing, even if it takes them fifteen or twenty years."
— Thelonious Monk

"The thing that’s important to know is that you never know.
You’re always sort of feeling your way."
— Diane Arbus

Please leave comments

Making art and capturing beauty is sacred...

I like visionaries. I like the cutting edge of everything creative. I'm a student of the classics but admire those who break new ground; artists like Andres Serrano, Thomas Struth, Edward Burtynsky, Cy Twombly and Francis Bacon. I'm a painter and sculptor as well as a photographer but like the immediacy of taking pictures. I take my camera everywhere, always on the prowl for a subject or good shot. It's remarkable how many opportunities we come across almost every day for a great image that can escape even the trained eye. I look for beauty in what’s ugly. I look for color, patterns, texture. I look for settings that have a story to tell, of abuse and toil about them. I experiment, I play. I look for order in chaos. I specialize in abstraction and what’s ephemeral. I’m a hopeless romantic but I suppose you’d never know it looking at my photography. I like pushing the envelope of what a photograph can be. Something that approaches painting or sculpture. Images that evoke some intellectual level of form or color or context. Images as found objects. I like how complex behavior and/or patterns arise from simpler rules.

I'm from Boston, MA.

I have doubts about my photography all the time.

I worked for many years as an R&D Lab Tech for Polaroid at their now defunct Chemical Operations facility in Waltham MA.

I attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and Tufts University through the late 70’s.

I left art school believing it had little or nothing to do with creating art. You either create art or you don’t. Some famous alumni include Cy Twombly and the Starn Twins. One of my early painting instructors was the son of Bauhaus painter Lyonel Feininger (Lux).

I’m addicted to the study and mystery of beauty and what it can be.

I have exquisite taste in everything.

Check out my Favorites by other artists.

Also check out my Flickr Hive Mind page:

www.flickriver.com/photos/mbmanray/popular-interesting/

If you find yourself returning to my sets time and again, consider a testimonial!

PLEASE BUY MY PRINTS!

Thank you for viewing my stuff!

Purchasing prints:

You can buy my prints at Imagekind: mbmanray.imagekind.com/

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