LARRY CWIK – ARTIST STATEMENT – TOTEM SERIES
After working for 15+ years in both single image photography and in Super 8 film, I visited and was profoundly inspired by the beauty and power of the Totem Poles of the first peoples of the Pacific Northwest coast. The poles inspired me to begin arranging my photographic images in a stacked manner to allude to a story or theme. Some use symbols or archetypes. The arrangement is intuitive, from my subconscious, like the individual images themselves. Many Totem Poles refer to transformation and all have correspondences between images. I similarly share correspondences in works in the Totem series works and often hint at transformations in many of the works.
Most of the works shown have a narrative. Totem 28 (Memory) speaks of memory, with the hand of my mother, now 82, with Alzheimer’s, in the center, a “memory machine” in the Alzheimer’s wing of an assisted living facility at the top, and an ancient tree in a now-modern suburb at the bottom. Totem 44 (Bellflower) has two images in an ethereal fog, one of a house, one of a forest. In between is an image of a beautiful but poisonous flower. In Totem 47 (Page) the top image shows my hand holding pages of text about artist Leonora Carrington (1917-2011), one of the last two living original surrealists, who inspired me. I enjoyed talking by phone with her each year from 2001 to 2011. Above the page with the text is a cloud reminiscent of a flame. The center image shows a pastoral scene of grass and high clouds symbolizing peace/serenity. The lower image shows the light of the sun breaking through dense artistic clouds. Totem 24 (Glass) has symbols of travel (at the top), dining (in the center), and nightlife (at the bottom). Totem 27 (Liberty) alludes to privacy in our contemporary society. A symbol of liberty is at the top, a symbol of light and possible surveillance is in the center, and a symbol of government is at the bottom. Totem 26 (Empire) is a socio-economic commentary and shows a parking sign, a jumbo jet in flight, and a homeless person pushing a grocery cart piled high with bottles and cans. Totem 23 (Balloons) has three images that together comment on urban density and life. Totem 49 (Perch) shows a dog looking forward peacefully on a beach, a bin of fish destined to be food, and a fisherman on a jetty above a driftwood piece with the design of a face, with the three together commenting on life and transcendence. Totem 41 (Family) shows a man, woman, and small child at the sea in the center image, a “family” of driftwood as an upright installation on a beach in the upper image, and what may be a plant family in the lower image, raising the question of what is a family, and what can be a family. Totem 11 (Helmet), the only horizontal Totem in the exhibit, has three images united not only by a compositional sphere in each of the three images, but to me through its representations of land (the helmet), sky (the clouds), and water (a satellite dish atop a boat on a river).
In 2008, I visited Alert Bay, B.C., a major center of Totem Pole building, to do research for this series. Totem 45 (Boat) is comprised of three images taken there. The top image, part of a boat, looks like a smiling porpoise or dolphin. The bottom image, a life boat, seems like a large-eyed fish. The center image appears to have a spirit figure hovering near a ladder in the midst of boat rigging. The three are all nautical images, but can signify different things to different people.
While the works in the series often have a narrative to me, I keep the titles short so that the works are open to a viewer's own interpretation. Similarly, a Totem Pole's narrative is open to interpretation even if its creator had a specific narrative in mind when designing/carving/painting the Pole. The images comprising the works in the series are primarily from the Pacific Northwest, particularly Oregon and British Columbia, with a few from New York, Hawai’i, and California.

Larry Cwik
P.O. Box 5912
Portland, Oregon 97228
503 827-7163
Email: photogart@gmail.com
Web: www.larrycwik.com
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