Philip Sager – Griffin State of Mind

Tell us how you first connected to the Griffin Museum.

I have been aware of the Griffin for a number of years and attended some talks, and then had the pleasure of meeting met Paula Tognarelli at Photolucida in 2019.  A year afterwards had the opportunity to visit the Griffin Museum in the summer of 2020 and became enthralled with the museum because of the wonderful exhibition spaces and the uniqueness of a museum dedicated to photography.  The idea of having my work shown at this terrific institution has been a dream for me.

How do you involve photography in your everyday life? Can you tell us about any images or artists that have caught your attention recently?

I carry a camera when I am out and being highly visually oriented, I am usually connected to my environment.  My photographic process is intuitive and requires a high degree of mindfulness- I do not think (unlike most of the rest of my life!) but just take pictures of what I am pulled to.  My work is highly connected with my emotional life and inner world.

Right now I am appreciating the multi-layered complexity of Blue Mitchel’s and Odette England’s work as well as the strong emotional aspects of Susan Burnstine’s and Cig Harvey’s photographs.

 

• Please tell us a little about your series “Veiled Actualities” and how it was conceived.

Veiled Actualities includes selections from four closely related bodies of work (https://www.philipsagerphoto.com) and stems from explorations that mirror the disjointed, fragmented and conflicted nature of my personal experiences, using visual metaphors that layer textures, reflecting internal chaos and emotional turbulence.  I have always been fascinated by multi-layered complex imagery as I feel that it accurately portrays the reality of human experience, which is inherently complex.  Thus, it is important to me that the photographs are from the real world and are created “in camera” as single images without multiple exposures or added content during post-processing.

I am influenced by growing up in New York City where I was enthralled by shop windows, reflecting the constant activity and often chaotic moments of the city, mirroring a fleeting and mesmerizing world.

The work also informs perception.  Our brains simplify visual imagery as we perceive, absorb and comprehend information. Normally our eyes see all of the visual information but our brains simplify to one or two major objects. In taking these pictures based in the real world, the camera lets us see the rich visual complexity and multiple layers that we do not conventionally perceive due to our mind’s tendency to simplify.

Has there been a Griffin Museum exhibition that has particularly engaged or moved you?

We live in San Francisco and Half Moon Bay, where we have 5 horses and the

current exhibition “E. caballus: The Domesticated Horse”, which is extraordinary, really speaks to me and my wife.

What is your favorite place to escape to?

I love the quiet solitude of ocean views. We escape to Big Sur and Elk several times a year to leave the world behind us, absent cell phone connectivity!

What is a book, song or visual obsession you have at the moment?

Currently I am re-reading “Art and Fear”.

If you could be in a room with anyone to have a conversation, who would it be and what would you talk about?

Milton Rauschenberg-  would love to discuss how he conceived his complex artworks.

You’ve described this multilayered approach as crucial to exploring the disjointed and conflicted nature of your personal experiences. Can you tell us more about that and why you’ve focused on this theme?

I take pictures intuitively and this focus initially happened unconsciously.  I was doing street photography, which in retrospect tended to be multilayered, when I pointed my camera one day at a storefront and was amazed by the reflected surface and the complexity of the image.   

I found the experience to be transformative.  I found this image and a few more that closely followed more interesting and emotional to me than the street photography I had been doing.  I continued to take pictures along similar lines and to explore their emotional content and visual complexity.  I came to see that the multiple layers speak to the convoluted nature of our existence in general, and to me personally about my inner world and feelings of chaos, fragmentation, and fragility.  

Additionally, in terms of how these photographs relate to perception, our brains simplify visual content, in order to make what we see understandable, but in reality human experience is quite complex.  For example, one might have a major emotional reaction to something, but usually there are multiple and occasionally conflictual emotions.  In a similar way, we may “see” one or 2 objects, but looking closer, we find that the visual experience is more nuanced.

I have had to train my mind to see this complexity.

What does photography mean to you and why is it your chosen medium? 

I started taking pictures as a child and love that the medium is rooted in the real world, but is also directly connected to my inner world.  I find that magical.  The experience of taking photographs puts me into a mindful state where I am not thinking, but relying on intuition.  I am also enthralled by the serendipitous experience of discovery.

What inspired you to take up photography (and when was this)?

As a child around 8 years old I got my first camera- a Kodak Instamatic 100 and was delighted in recording my experiences in the real world; I found a direct connection to pictures that did not exist for me with painting or sketching.

Are you working on any other projects at the moment? If so, could you talk about them?

Yes, I have several other projects.  The most developed is called American Interiors and is on my website (https://www.philipsagerphoto.com/american-interiors).  This series reflects different cultural and ethnic influences in our society and how people choose to decorate their personal, yet public, spaces. They explore individual creativity and the desire to beautify their environment. To me, their efforts and creations are touching and make me want to know more about the people behind these spaces and their stories. The multi-layered visual complexity of the images raises questions about perception and

illusion.

How do you approach naming your exhibitions? 

I spend a lot of time writing and trying to distill the title down to the core aspects and I speak with different people to understand what resonates for them

How do you know when a work is “finished”? 

When I keep essentially taking the same photographs and the excitement wains.