REIMAGINED LIFE PATTERNS: DOUG MCLARTY
New patterns emerge when artist Doug McLarty scans his collections of found natural objects. The former landscape photographer now creates images using a high-resolution flatbed digital scanner instead of using a camera, in a technique known as “scanography.” The result is a breathtakingly beautiful, more intimate view of nature.
McLarty finds joy in the patterns, colors and textures that he finds. Sometimes he will study a leaf or a rock that he has collected for hours until it reveals its secrets.
McLarty credits British sculptor, environmentalist, and photographer Andy Goldsworthy, glass artist Dale Chihuly, and architect Frank Gehry for inspiring his botanical scans. Artist Portia Munson has worked similarly with pattern-rich botanical scans to create her magnificent flower mandalas.
McLarty’s work begins when he gathers plants, flowers, shells, rocks, and other natural materials near his home and in his travels.
He considers both holistic composition as well as the deconstruction and recombination of elements . For example, he might pluck petals from a flower, only to reassemble them in a new way, together with pieces of other flora or remnants of fauna.
He arranges compositions of mixed found natural objects, such as blue bird-of-paradise petals arranged into an eight-pointed compass above a sand dollar in Voyage.
A zig-zag pattern of Mexican flame vine pods contrast brightly against a green palm frond.
Scanography tends to flatten depth, but not entirely. McLarty considers its renderings as yielding a new dimension. It’s not quite two dimensions and it’s not quite three dimensions. He sees it as somewhere in between, like 2 1/2 dimensions. And it’s true, you can almost “see” the back of the petals and leaves.
Before becoming an artist, McLarty worked as a public affairs officer for the U.S. Air Force. He retired at the rank of colonel. He later became a communications consulting business. He worked with photography and graphic design in both of his jobs. And while he loved doing his own landscape photography, after years of taking hundred of landscape photos, he began to yearn for another creative path.
McLarty was originally inspired by an exhibit of scanned nature images that he saw in a gallery in Florida over one decade ago. He became fascinated by the technique.
To create each image, McLarty places his bits of natural ephemera on the scanner bed, arranging them upside down and backwards, as he must to get the composition he imagines in reverse. Light from the scanner bar passes over and through the objects, creating images rich in visual texture.
“Palm Necklace,” is composed of pale blue berries on yellow stems with pink Ti plant leaves.
Starfish Retreat showcases starfish and a spiral shell collected from the beach.
All Doug McLarty images are for sale. Each can be custom sized and printed on either archival photo paper or canvas. These limited edition prints are personally inspected by the artist, signed and numbered prior to release to a client. Contactthe artist for availability and pricing details.
Read more about Beautiful Patterns all this week on BeautifulNow, And check out more beautiful things happening now in BN Wellness, Impact, Nature/Science, Food, Arts/Design, and Travel, Daily Fix posts.
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