Paul Farmer, January Gallery Artist @ Iredell Arts Gallery

Paul shared with guests that painting was his usual medium and he wasn’t much of a photographer before he began this project. The idea for this project actually came to him after a hike in Shenandoah. Upon arriving home, he was looking at the pictures he had taken with his phone during the hike and discovered that the most interesting ones he had were of the lichen on the rocks. So he decided to invest in a macro lens, began researching macro photography, and down the rabbit hole he went. What came out of it is the unique and extremely interesting exhibit at the Iredell Arts Council for the month of January.

The entire project took Paul a year and a half to complete. Most of the collages are partnered with a QR code that takes you to an interactive photomontage of the complex layers of his patterns, paired with nature sounds that he recorded, and, just for fun, made “glitchy”.

Paul is an Iredell County artist with a BA from NC State and MFA from Western Carolina. He teaches visual arts at Winthrop University, Central Piedmont and Rowan-Cabarrus Community Colleges.