Light Space & Time Online Art Gallery is extremely pleased to announce that tSOfi Inbar has been named as the Gallery’s new featured artist and she will now be promoted by the gallery for the next 14 days in the gallery’s Artist Showcase.
tSOfi is an award-winning artist based in Massachusetts, USA. tSOfi was selected as 1 of the top twelve finalists in the gallery’s 16th Solo Art Exhibition Series. The placement in this competition qualified her art to be showcased in this feature.
tSOfi’s Artist Showcase feature will be promoted to over 350+ major news outlets, with inclusion on Google News & Bing News. In addition, the gallery will also be featuring and promoting her artwork in the gallery’s various social media networks for further exposure.
Below are tSOfi’s Artist Biography, Artist Statement and 5 images that were submitted to this competition.
Artist Biography
“A Scientist in Mind Whose Heart is in the Creative Arts”
tSOfi Inbar grew up and was educated in Israel. She graduated from the Technion with a BSc in Chemistry and an MSc in Computer Science. She worked as a Senior Software Engineer and taught math and computer science in high schools and colleges. The Technion, Israel Institute of Technology (IIT), is among the top universities in the world, renowned for several Nobel Prizes and many crucial technological inventions.
tSOfi lived in Uganda, explored East Africa and visited Ethiopia and Iran before immigrating to the USA in 1977.
A daily swimmer in Crystal Lake, she founded and presided over a legally incorporated, nonprofit organization “Crystal Lake is Our Gem”. tSOfi dances Ballroom dancing with young adult, competitive, champion dancers. tSOfi enjoys Classical music, ballet and dance. She is compassionate and caring for people and animals. She devotedly cares for her two beloved cats, supports the World Wildlife Foundation, donates and signs petitions against injustice and cruelty to people and animals.
tSofi began her impressive art-photography after age 70 with a unique artistic vision. Like Grandma Moses, tSOfi is a very late-starter and self-starter whose art is distinctly different from other genres, surprising and refreshing the art world. Her goal is to surprise and inspire the viewers.
tSOfi’s greatest inspiration has been Nature’s incomparable, ever-changing beauty. She was inspired by impressionists and post-impressionists like Van Gogh, Cezanne, and by many great Masters. As a scientist-artist, she relates to Leonardo Da Vinci and Escher who are particularly meaningful to her as sceintists-artists. tSOfi was greatly inspired by artist Joan Miró and identifies with him as a person. He said that his feet are on the ground but his head is in the clouds - steady, reliable, anchored in reality but having an unusual imagination. She relates to his sense of humor, care for details and optimism. Spending several days viewing the Miró retrospective exhibition she declared: “It’s OK to be ME!”
Her message is “Whether in a scene or a life situation, what we see is not necessarily what we are looking at but how we choose to look at it”.
Artist Statement
My mission as an art photographer is to surprise people by showing them, in my photo images, familiar places and things in unexpected ways. I strive to show them how places and items they've seen countless times - either they cannot identify them, or see in what unpredictable ways those objects might appear.
I wish that my art would inspire people to stop, notice their surroundings and think. My message is to show people that what we see is greatly influenced by how we choose to look at it. Viewing objects, scenes and life situations in a more creative way gives us new joy and meaning. Things and situations that seem boring or even “ugly" can shine with new meaning.
It is extremely rewarding to me that some viewers have said that my art has inspired and enriched their lives as they became more attentive to their environment, and reassessed their life’s priorities. My starting so late in life, has inspired some younger people to start trying out their ambitions.
Reflections and shadows fascinate me; they are my art-photography trademark. I always seek unconventional reflections and shadows giving them new meanings.
People often ask me what I photograph. My answer: “it is not what but how!” My body of work is substantial and I have several collections. My signature style and method can be clearly seen in my diverse collection of reflections in cars that I call: “Vehicles of Life Reflections". I have developed a unique style and method for capturing exotic, striking, even bizarre re-flections in ordinary cars.
Typically, photographers photograph a fixed subject but I create and change the elements of my composition. By shifting my position, right, left, forward, backwards, up, down, diagonal, zoom... trying many angles and options, I change and rearrange the reflected elements’ appearance: their size, color, orientation, correlation. Thus, I create unique compositions of these spectacular, strange, surreal elements.
I use the camera as my “paint brush” and the elements become like my “paint palette”. Capturing unusual shadow is also one of my signatures. I find that exploring shadows and reflections adds perspective and depth to my way of seeing and experiencing the world. Wherever and whenever there is light and “an object”, there is a shadow. Our loyal shadows accompany us wherever we go or stay. They open up new dimensions of space and time; they extend images and give them more depth, details, complexity, and interest. We can learn a lot from shadows: be flexible and adjust to changing situations and conditions, complement and extend each other, pay attention to details... to sometimes be humble and follow - that it's sometime ok to follow.
The more I examine shadows the more I learn about the world. In the process of creating five self-curated solo shows, I have developed a unique curating style that impressed Trevor Smith, the internationally known curator of Peabody Essex Museum. I form groups of pictures based on common attributes such as color, shapes, subject and texture. I arrange them in a manner that forms a continuation of lines and shapes between different members of a group, for a smooth eye transition. I examine “endless” permutations of positions and orientations. Then I arrange the groups in a meta-group (the whole wall or gallery) that forms an art composition by itself.
Science and art, which are major component of myself, work hand-in-hand. It is obvious that my scientific approach & thinking underlies my compositional and curatorial work, but the aesthetics has the upper hand.
My two photography rules are: 1. Spontaneity & Creativity 2. No Rules; every scene has a life of its own.
Unlike the photography style, that puts a great emphasis on rules, equipment, lenses, tripods... I shoot hand-held. How could I accomplish these movements with a tripod? I have a relatively simple camera with only one lens in order to move freely, be spontaneous and attentive. To the question, what camera do I use, my answer is - “It’s not the camera, it’s the eye behind the camera!”
What does it mean to me? Through my art, I aim to encourage others to join me in enjoying our wonderful world. I hope that my art will inspire viewers to develop and use their own power to choose how we look at the world around us and how we understand social situations. I hope to achieve this vision through my art, which opens eyes, minds, and hearts.
tSOfi’s website is https://SofisticatedPhotography.Shutterfly.com.
