Edmund Boateng, I'm Not A Painter Solo Exhibition

Before I started this project I never really paid attention to the architecture and colors of the buildings in and around Columbus. I mean, I had taken some photos of buildings in the past but It was almost like I wasn’t paying attention to what I was picturing. One day I rented a new camera for a commercial work, after the job, I had a few more days with the camera, so I decided to go for a walk with it.

Having a new camera in hand made me think about looking at things differently. I wasn’t trying to make a great picture, I was just out there taking photos of anything that stood out colorfully. What I came home with is what eventually evolved into the exhibition you’re about to witness. After that, I went out every day, looking at every single building in our neighborhoods, trying to find my own sense of beauty in them, not just new, shiny buildings, but old ones too, sometimes even abandoned ones.

Two years ago, I drove past a building on the west side of Columbus and couldn’t stop thinking about it. That day, I didn’t take the picture because I felt the sky wasn’t complementing the image I had in mind for the building. So I waited weeks, maybe months until one day there it was: a bright blue sky with patches of white clouds. I went to pick up my daughter, and on the way back I drove to the building and took the picture. Taking the photo took less than five minutes, but building up that picture took weeks, if not months.

My daughter was confused as to why I stopped in a very random neighborhood, parked in a somewhat abandoned parking lot, at a busy intersection, standing by the road side taking a photo of a building that almost looked abandoned. She asked “Dad, why did you take a photo of that building?” And I answered “I think it's beautiful Rhe” then she said, “really” as she laughed at me.

I will never forget that interaction, which means I will never forget taking that picture. Two years later, when I decided to have an exhibition with these photographs, I wanted to go back and recreate the image, this time with a much higher-resolution camera. That day, I learned a lesson. When I got there, the building wasn’t the same. The painting on the building was washed out, and the main character of the building that caught my eyes two years earlier, was gone. I was sad, but also excited, because I got to make a whole new picture. Things around us are changing constantly, and at a very fast pace, and I’m humbled that I get to be one of the people who slows down to observe and document that change.

Why the title “I’M NOT A PAINTER”? Well, isn’t it obvious? Haha. This is coming from my pencil drawing days, when people will constantly say, “I love your paintings”, and I’d have to respond “thank you, but I’m not a painter, this is just a pencil drawing” It’s funny, because now, whenever I’m making pictures like these, I look at them as paintings, even though I’m not a painter.

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Host or Publisher Edmund Boateng