David Aaron Sercel
1246 Graham Ave
Apt L4
Florence, AL 35630
(256) 335-7899


Bio:
David was born in the beautiful Rocky Mountains of Colorado in 1986, and now resides in Florence, Alabama, where he is pursuing a degree in Fine Arts at the University of North Alabama.

Since early childhood David as enjoyed various forms of art and has continued to expand his artistic interests. He currently works primarily in the medium of photography, covering a variety of subjects including landscapes, nature, and portraiture. He also works in the mediums of painting and sculpture.

David's work has been recognized at shows and competitions across the southeast, receiving numerous first place and best of show awards, and his works are included in private and corporate collections nationwide.

Artist Statement:
"Creating art, for me, has always begun with the desire to share with others the beauty I see around me: to preserve and highlight those things that inspire and excite me aesthetically and emotionally, and communicate the value I see in them to others. In the medium of photography I have found the perfect means to do this.

For me, the quality of light is perhaps the most important influence in creating a successful photograph. The play of light on the forms and textures of objects creates an abstract beauty and worth that exists apart from the specificities of what the objects are - and it is this quality that creates the aesthetic excitement that I attempt to convey in my photography. So, before considering a subject on any other level, I see it first as an arrangement of light and shade, form and texture transcribed onto a flat surface - the final print - and it must work on this abstract level before any other traits of the image are considered or expressed. This emphasis on expressing light and the formal abstract nature of objects is why much of my most recent work is black and white. The black and white image distills a subject down to light and shadow alone, emphasizing the formal and textural elements of a subject and the quality of the light. Through black and white imagery I feel I can most often more fully express the aesthetic excitement I experience in response to my subjects.

For me, photography is a process of discovery and interpretation. The world can often seem chaotic and ugly, with forms scattered and tangled across the landscape. But when approached with an eye for the abstract, forgetting about what things are and only thinking about what they look like, formal compositions begin to emerge - interrelations of forms and textures, light and shade - coming together to form order, beauty, and unity. The process is one of discovering and recognizing formal relations among objects and organizing them into an aesthetic and expressive order. I find this process of discovery exhilarating.

In my photography, I look for these 'found compositions' in the world around me - interrelations of forms, shapes, and values - arranging them in my viewfinder to form pleasing and formal abstract arrangements that express the aesthetic excitement that I feel in the scene. I attempt to emphasize the formal order and beauty that is all around us, expressed through the dramatic interplay of light and shadow."