Cathy Cone (lives Vermont) takes a surrealist approach to photography, beginning in the late 1970’s when she was introduced to the Diana camera. This led her to investigate experimental techniques and a poetic, multidisciplinary approach to image making. Cone received an MFA from Maine Media College, Rockport and studied at Ohio University, Athens and Vermont Studio Center, Johnson. She has exhibited at the Vermont Center for Photography, Brattleboro; DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA; Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, MN; and Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA. Her works are in the collections of American Express; The Beekman, a Thompson Hotel; Hallmark; and IBM. Cone founded the collaborative printmaking workshop Cone Editions Press with her husband, master printer Joe Cone, in 1980.
Statement from the Artist:
My grandmother raised me. She was born with a large birthmark in the shape of a fish that covered her chin and neck. She referred to it as her purple stain. When I was young, she would often tell me the story of how it happened: her mother cut her finger cleaning fish when she was pregnant and put her finger up to her mouth immediately to stop the bleeding.
I begin these works by scanning tintypes that I have collected since the late seventies. The scanned image is printed, and becomes a contemplative ground for painting. The painted photograph is essentially a duet in which two mediums contribute towards forming a whole. The two are independent of each other physically, historically and on many other levels. The integrity of each exists simultaneously in a shared physicality through and on the photographic print.