Patrice Wynne's photographs are available for sale at a cost of $125.00 USD per photo. Printed on archival paper and using archival inks, dry mounted and framed. To view larger images and title, click the photo.

           

           

                 

Artist Statement

As a photographer I am keenly aware of the beauty found in the mundane and the unexpected. Beauty to me is a moment of grace, when my heart quickens and I know that an image is transforming my emotional state. When I travel, I photograph life on the streets and I let my eyes be captured by the surprising beauty found everywhere on earth, under the harshest conditions and ordinary moments of being. I photograph in order to restore faith in life and to bring more beauty and joy into the world.

In the last two years I have turned to the camera as a way to give form and shape to my personal vision. I have been inspired by the life of the early 20th century photographer Tina Modotti, whose life had many twists of fate, like mine, in San Francisco and in Mexico where she took many of the finest photographs of the 20th century. With her camera she expressed the "wholly unsayable".

Since I was a girl I have been intrigued by the potential of photography to manifest memory, to bring the ephemeral moment into some illusion of permanence. My fascination with photography gestated while I pursued other pathways that eventually led me to San Miguel. Fortunately digital photography has provided me with the ability to indulge my lust for the image, which San Miguel does nothing to discourage. In one year I have developed a body of many thousands of images of this photographer's paradise as opportunities present themselves daily.

Life in San Miguel among the Mexican people affords many lessons in serendipity and devotion. Often one turns a corner and comes across an image that almost asks to be photographed, as if some divine grace brought me to that place with my camera in that moment. I attempt in my photographs to capture the deep spirit of devotion in the Mexican people, the mysticism of their rituals and the play of their fiestas. Yet even when I am a witness to the everyday, mundane activities that all people of the world must participate in, something surprising shows up. It is my job as a photographer to gift you with that magical and grace-filled moment when I photograph, a moment of prayer-like attention. I believe photography is "the eye's peculiar from of prayer."(Eugenia Parry, THE magazine, Santa Fe).

I hope that these images inspire you to see the world in new ways and with an awakened heart.