Jack Collins

Jack Collins Bio & Artist Statement

I grew up in a small town in North Carolina.  I joined the Navy after graduation and married my high school sweetheart. We eventually moved back to our small town where we raised our two daughters.

    The next 17 years involved small town life, church and family events.  In 1998 our family moved to Orange County California and I returned to college to study art and photography.  I moved to Denver in the summer of 2005 and continue to explore the world through new eyes.

 I believe my artist statement explains my work and life best.

Artist Statement:

Love and Forgiveness

My work is about acceptance

Acceptance of things we cannot change

To learn WHY they should NOT change

Using opposites

Black and white

Male and female

Life and death

Opposites that ultimately attract

Halves of the same whole

We are all dots moving along a linear course

Waiting to be pushed and pulled

Learning to exert the energy, to control the forces,

Ultimately, required to change in order to resume the linear path

My work is about education and the need to evolve

When balancing, one must go towards the center, the middle gray, and move outward in all directions, such as the spokes of a wheel, that all lead to the same place from a different point, and ultimately with the same purpose

We are all seeking to balance and achieve a rich tapestry of detail,

purpose, and interest to our individual pictures, while creating a mosaic of ONE.

I want to explore the human need that requires each of us to balance the two extremes, using the sensibilities of black and white photography as my medium.

Black and white photography mixes light and dark beautifully, with a

balanced and acceptable tonal range.

My two personal extremes are religion and sexuality, and my work is about breaking down the false ideas that bind me, whether in the dark or the light.

                                                                                         Jack Collins