‘The Forgotten Lives Project’ pictures exhibition combines historical past, fantasy

Photographer and collage artist David Bender is fascinated with previous pictures and the tales that include them. He recollects seeing a bin stuffed with previous pictures at an vintage retailer in the future and serious about the individuals within the pictures and the lives they lived centuries in the past. 

“I felt really drawn to them and [felt] kind of sad in a way, because I was like ‘These people have really rich lives like we do,’ and they’re kind of forgotten in this bin,” he stated. 

He started compiling early portrait pictures and daguerreotypes, a kind of photographic picture on a silver-plated copper sheet. After accumulating them for a couple of years from vintage shops and eBay, he started utilizing them to create new artworks. 

His digital collages make up “The Forgotten Lives Project,” now on show on the Evanston Art Center, 1717 Central St., by Nov. 2. The exhibition options eight items by Bender within the Art Center’s foyer. 

The exhibition got here collectively in two and a half weeks, when artist and curator Fran Joy reached out to Bender about having his work on show. Despite some anxiousness with the brief turnaround time, he felt prefer it was an ideal alternative to show his work with different exhibitions.

Through the venture, Bender is pushed not solely to protect the recollections of the individuals within the pictures, however to awaken it and inform new tales. Although he doesn’t all the time know the names of the individuals within the pictures, he believes in utilizing artwork to honor them and retell their story. 

Bender’s work options parts of fantasy, whimsy and creepiness that distinction with the intense expressions within the pictures. Bender explains that early portrait pictures was a time-consuming course of that concerned topics posing for hours in entrance of a digital camera. 

He enjoys the juxtaposition of the intense nature of the portraits with fantastical parts. In his paintings, a person sits on the trunk of an elephant and a girl sits underwater with the tentacles of a kraken popping out of her head. 

“I’ll see a portrait and I’m like ‘Oh yes. This is what I envision for this.’ And then other times, I have an idea for something and it can take me years sometimes to find the right photograph through my collection and my travels to find something that fits,” he stated. 

The piece titled Sea of Solitude provided the chance to create a story of the girl within the {photograph} and alter how she may be perceived. 

“She’s sad to me. She looks very sad, and then she’s so powerful above the water. She’s controlling the ship and she just has this immense sort of power,” he defined. 

It was this disappointment that drew him to that {photograph}, as he sought to provide her a brand new story and hopefully carry her again to life in a artistic method. 

Working on this venture has made Bender take into consideration how a lot pictures has superior because the nineteenth century. What was as soon as a protracted course of has change into quick and simple with the clicking of a button on a smartphone. 

With every {photograph} Bender collects, he additionally displays on his personal life and family members’ lives and the way they might be remembered sooner or later. Even although how we take photographs has modified, he stated he believes one factor that’s constant is capturing a second in time and the lives of individuals. 

The Evanston Art Center is open: Monday to Thursday: 9 a.m.–6 p.m; Friday: 9 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday: 9 a.m.-4 p.m. 

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