Statement

"Making this latest collection of photographic works consumed nearly ten years. It was exciting to start, but to take it to "perfection" was the hardest thing I have ever finished.

To make this thing that can be called Art, beyond just a beautiful visual account of the human condition, needed a wholly different process: to completely obfuscate all the cotton, hay and rags of life and to look clear-heartedly inward and own the truth of one's time, to exclude repetitions, excise vanities, cut away sentiments, and pull a distilled insight out of meaning, so as to be relevant to others.

Each step a slow-motion battle against an army of monsters, common distractions and warm jealousy.

All this to reach a place where Art, this Art, has power beyond any sorcery of matter or new arrangement of old words.

If done right, something life-altering can happen when enough emotion, experience and human honesty are concentrated at one time and in one object. At that moment, something strikes deep inside, and the meanings of common words can be changed, things ugly written are reset, and anything can be forgiven, a life transformed."

— Angelo Valentino