Brian Hallas is an award-winning abstract photographer who creates hallucinatory blooms of the imagination. His latest works focus on the flora that decorates his daily life as filtered through photographic improvisations resulting in images that are often kaleidoscopic in nature and usually quite painterly. Brian’s photographs have been shown throughout the world (in brick-and-mortar venues as well as online), and hang in several private collections in the US and elsewhere. Brian has been featured in a number of print and online magazines, and has also enjoyed collaborations with many visually oriented artists across the globe.
He enjoyed a long career in the theater as a sound designer and performer, and has been an associate of National Medal of the Arts recipient Ping Chong since 1983. Many years ago, Brian adopted photography as a medium for expression upon becoming a schoolteacher, where economy of effort to achieve maximum effect is one of the major keys to survival. He now works at a local nursery as a gardener, which feeds his daily rituals of taking, processing and posting his photographs. Among the multitudes of perks afforded by a life in the Arts, Brian has especially been fortunate to feast in many parts of the world where he otherwise would never have feasted.
Statement:
I am an abstract digital photographer. Every image I make is accomplished on my iPhone, from the initial photo through manipulating it using various apps and layering. My improvisations lead me to discover rich colors, shapes, and textures, resulting in often-painterly images. In choosing of late to celebrate the vast and eclectic cosmos of flowers, I create what I like to call “hallucinatory blooms of the imagination.”
I make art to entertain myself, and feel intensely fortunate when I excite others with my work. I want the viewer to become my collaborator, to embark together on a visual adventure to see the unseen.
My tastes are stimulated by an eclectic spectrum of artists from an array of art forms, eras, and genres, whose works inspire me to make art.
After a long, rich life collaborating in film, music, and especially theater (principally as a sound designer in NYC), I have turned to photography as my primary means of creativity. Now past the age of 70, I feel very much the proverbial late bloomer, like a modern-day Grandma Moses.
My abstract flora images make for an oasis of peace and creativity, as they refresh my aspirations for a very troubled world.