Artospective: Identity Theft a Series by Chris Kovacs from Canada.

Identity Theft a Photography Series by Chris Kovacs from Canada.

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An small Interview with Chris Kovacs.

What is your name and where are you from?

My name is Chris Kovacs and I am from Canada. I was born in 1976 and raised in Edmonton, Alberta. I relocated from Edmonton to Vancouver, BC in 1999.

How did you get into creating images?

Ever since I can remember I always loved looking at art and photographs in books, I would rather analyze the images than read the text. For me, the creative bug started when I was eleven years old, that’s when I received my first camera, it was a simple point and shoot Kodak film camera. I would run around and photograph everything I could, mostly portraits of my sister and various friends. It wasn’t until 2005, when my first son was born, that I became very interested in creating professional portraits of him, so I got a decent DSLR and read many books. I was creating very professional looking images but it was mostly of my children and various things like chess pieces or the kitchen faucet, just very random things for fun.

In 2007 I discovered the works of David Burdeny (Canada), Michael Kenna (USA) and Josef Hoflehner (Austria). I was fascinated by their black and white long exposure images and I just had to find out that they accomplished that look, so I did, I researched and bought the proper ND filters and set out to create my own long exposure images. By 2009 I was becoming bored of doing long exposure landscapes, it seemed like everyone was doing them, everyone’s images were trying to look like Michael Kenna, I didn’t want to do that, I wanted to create my own unique images. I went through a period from 2010 to 2014 where I barely photographed anything, I just wasn’t inspired to photograph and it seemed like whenever I did something, someone else had already done it before me. In 2011, I founded the digital magazine “Adore Noir” and I was pretty much involved in that full-time. In 2014 things changed and inspiration struck when I took a trip to Croatia and Italy, the people and the culture is like a work of art it’s impossible not to be inspired, so I took out my iPhone 5S and using the “Hipstamatic” App I began taking multiple exposure pictures, the bulk of that work became the series “From Divergent Lands” and “Phantom”, which is now represented by Susan Spiritus Gallery in Newport Beach, California. Over the last three years I have been inspired by so much that I am now beginning much more experimental works like the “Identity Theft” series and I am also experimenting with working beyond the print by incorporating various other media such as painting with acrylics and inks and drawing with pencils and charcoal on top of the photographs, which allows me to create an original and unique artwork.

What is your driving force?

Pretty much anything really. An idea usually comes to me late at night while working on a project, something happens where I say to myself, that was cool, maybe I should try it this way, or incorporate this or that, or I wonder what would happen if I tried adding something or taking away something, it’s all quite spontaneous. My wife is also a huge driving force, she is always encouraging my work and is very supportive of me, I can’t thank her enough for her patience and understanding.

What kind of work you do and why?

Currently I am interested in creating mixed media photographs, where I add other media onto the inkjet print.

Tell us about "Identity Theft" series.

The “Identity Theft” series was inspired by someone close to me and their struggle with addiction, which ultimately led to homelessness. They have since made a miraculous recovery which I think lends to the strength in the images. The images are composites from models and textures that I photographed, I also use stock images if it’s something I have a hard time photographing or finding, each image is made up of at least ten different models and articles of clothing, the faces are not recognizable, which portrays the absence of the true person which is hidden beneath the addiction.