“Bench”
JERRY HANZL
After graduating from high school in 1972, Jerry Hanzl attended the Cooper School
of Art in Cleveland with the burning desire to be an artist. Life changed along
the way when he met and married his soul mate. In search of a serious career,
he attended the Control Data Institute in Cleveland, graduated second in his
class and went to work with Control Data Corporation. After a relocation and
12 years with the company, Hanzl felt the need for a new lifestyle. He moved
on and began exploring a new interest—photography.
Several job changes ensued, and a move back to computers continued his journey
as an artist. Blending all of his skills, Hanzl combines his computer skills
with photography and a love of art into what he considers painting photography
on a digital canvas.
ARTIST STATEMENT
“While attending the Cooper School of Art in Cleveland, I often visited
the Dali Museum in the neighboring city of Beachwood. One image on display there
was his painting, ‘The Hallucinogenic Matador,’ and I would sit
for hours watching people look at this painting. It is a very large image with
a Roman coliseum and repeated images of the statue of Venus de Milo. Superimposed
over this is the face of a matador, which pops out at you after you look at
it for a few minutes. People would actually jerk their heads back when this
happened for the first time, and I always felt that if I could ever create a
visual image that powerful—that it could cause a bodily reaction—then
I would finally be creating the kinds of images I wanted to make.
“We now live in a very scary world, so I try to create images out of dreams and fantasies because that is where I believe we will finally find the answers we all seek. I aspire after the surreal visions of my mentor. Digital photography has given me the ‘real,’ and the computer has allowed me to create the ‘sur.’ I want people to travel through my ‘surrealscapes’ and search for whatever they can find—just as I am searching with my life and art to find the best way to live and express my dreams and visions. What I do can be best expressed as ‘painting with photography on a digital canvas.’”
For more information, call 321-633-4075; e-mail jerryhanzl@yahoo.com; visit www.digitalartbyjerry.com.
“Bench”
“Children
See”