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PrintThrough the fog
There's a photo of a ribbon of highway emrging out of the darkness, looking like a DNA strand unfurled in deep space.
There’s something doleful about the photographs of Paul Wilbur. Part of it is the nature of his subject matter: a ravaged homeless person and a furious man sitting on a park bench. A farm vista that should be beautiful is instead metallic and unsettling. But part of the darkness comes from the digitally manipulated picture, with its stark, inky backdrops.
“I try to give my photographs a painterly quality,” says Wilbur, in his 50s, with a bushy red beard. “I try to remove all the unnecessary details.”
This is the second go at photography for Wilbur, whose images will be on display at the Roy G Biv Gallery for Emerging Artists Aug. 7 to 28. They’re part of VSA Ohio’s Accessible Expressions Ohio 2010 exhibit, devoted to the work of artists who suffer from disabilities. It was some 30 years ago that Wilbur went to Ohio University and tried his hand at photography. It was, he recalls, a disaster.
“I gave up I got so frustrated,” Wilbur says. “A professor said if I wanted to work for K-Mart as a photographer I would be fine. My photographs were bad. My images were not pleasant.”
Instead of working behind a lens, he ended up working with people with mental disabilities. Which is ironic, because Wilbur soon would be facing down his own disabilities—bi-polar depression and alcoholism.
“It crept up on me, but about 10 years ago, my depression started affecting my job, the way I performed it. I had trouble concentrating. Some days I felt like a zombie. I eventually lost my job. And when I got divorced, I plunged into despair.” His eyes reflect some of the wounds of those times. He looks away; then his gaze comes back.
“My normal feeling waking up is that I have the flu and a hangover every day of my life,” Wilbur says. “But sometimes photography helps me overcome depression. I only started doing photography again five years ago. My art is what I do now. It’s what I have left.”
He shows me more of his work. There’s a black and white photograph of an autistic African-American youth at his church and a harrowing portrait of a man who appears to be in chronic pain. There’s a shot of a ribbon of highway emerging out of the darkness, looking like a DNA strand unfurled in deep space. It’s called “The Road.”
“I was trying to show a road in isolation to make a geometric shape,” says Wilbur. “I was after the perfect form.”
Not all of his work is dark. There’s a shot of his granddaughter with phosphorescent zucchinis over her eyes. Wilbur lights up when he mentions her name.
He was born in Wyoming, a suburb of Cincinnati, in 1958. His father was an engineer and his mother a housewife. He got into photography in high school, working on his yearbook and the school newspaper. “I was a below average student, but I had a passion for making photographs,” he recalls. “I loved Ansel Adams and Edward Weston.” Before finishing college, he got a certificate in art education. But by then Reagan had swept to power and cuts were made in arts programs across the country.
Wilbur has had his work shown with the Ohio Art League and other arts organizations. Collectors have purchased prints. He’d like to go back to school and study art. But the stress of academia—all the relentless test-taking—would be too great, he thinks.
His life does not roll easy. Wilbur dreams of living free from the clutter that troubles his mind. In that dream, he won’t have to take the many medications that make him see life in a fog.
“One day, I hope to be seen as Paul Wilbur, fine arts photographer,” he says. “Not as Paul Wilbur, disabled photographer.”
Jory Farr can be reached at joryfarr@gmail.com.
