Artist Statement

Jacques LeBlanc

has been taking photographs of Long Island since the early 1970’s and has always been attracted to documenting its towns and homes. Although already well established as a black and white photographer, since retiring in 2007 from a career in education he has immersed himself in the use of color. “During this same period I was spending a great deal of time studying dreams, or more specifically Oneirology. This is not the study of a dream's meaning but rather their actual appearance”, Jacques said. Five key elements emerged:1. 70% of dreams are in vivid color. 2. Roughly the same percentage are out of focus or blurry.3. Nearly all lack details.4. There is often a visual lead to something just out of sight or unobtainable.5. There is a sense of confusion. “I began to produce photographs with these five elements as my guide, eventually merging them with painting, both digitally and traditionally, to give me even further latitude with my hybrid photographic images. I wondered if creating images that looked like a dream would trigger the recollection of one". “Today my work still starts with a photograph but it rarely ends there”, LeBlanc stated. “Now they more often interpret rather than document and because of that they are often defined using terms most often associated with paintings. My goal is to produce a timeless, almost dreamlike appearance, similar to how a memory might appear. Typically, the feeling that I want the viewer to walk away with is one of nostalgia.”