Personal Surveys

Providence

The Photo Comp

Little Essex Street

Personal Calibration

2001: 52 Sundays

The Crosses of the
Northern Neck

The Wild Dogs of
Jersey City

About Jeffrey B. Evans

I work off the grid of art dealers, collectors, and curators. This triangle is self-serving, and morphs back and forth between the three points. Sometimes a dealer is a collector, sometimes a collector is a curator, and sometimes a curator is a dealer. It’s about money, not art. A curator that is able to include a piece from his collection in a museum increases the worth of his whole collection. To me, no great art can be produced if one is doing it for this reason or that reason. If one just simply does it, something special occurs.

I have been living and working as a photographer and graphic designer in the New York City area since 1981. For me, photography is involuntary. There is no agenda for taking one particular shot—or not taking another. Photography is merely an expedient way to survey the world, to ascertain, to remember.

About six months after 9/11, I was sorting some loose change and I came across a penny that looked like something someone had taken a blowtorch to. The image of Lincoln was barely discernible, as if the coin had been dipped in acid. Gouges had been taken out of it, as if gnawed on by a super rat. It looked like it had been in a fire, or an explosion, or both, and it was covered with a white chalky substance. My point is that I think about the unfortunate events of September 11, 2001 every day. It comes upon me without warning.

But then I remember that with love, faith, and simple acts of kindness, there is hope for this world.

My images have been distilled into eight groups: Personal Surveys, Providence, The Photo Comp, Little Essex Street, Personal Calibration, 2001: 52 Sundays, The Crosses of the Northern Neck, and The Wild Dogs of Jersey City. With each one I have tried to preserve an aspect of our time.