PROFILE

Guillermo "Bill" Ipsan was born in Havana, Cuba. He can trace his ancestry from around the globe; Africa, Cuba, Spain, and China. During the Cuban Revolution, Bill's family left the country to resettle in the United States. They left behind a genteel way of life in an affluent neighborhood of Havana that boasted palm-lined streets and beautiful estates to take up residence in the tenements of New York City. Among the few possessions that arrived with them in their new home were their family photographs.
Those photographs made a lasting impression on Bill; they were the memories of what the family had left behind, what they had once been. Now, the streets of New York City became his new reality.
As early as 8-years old, he began to capture the urban landscapes that surrounded him through his camera. It was his way of being in control, of feeling safe and creating beauty from a harsh environment.
"I look to captivate the beauty in our life's walk, that, which we may pass by or may never see. My challenge is in creating an opportunity to ascertain beauty in the ordinary, to create life from the mundane. No matter how lost, broken or passed over, a pile of trash can become an eclectic and balanced work that resonates with color, balance and ambiguity. A tattered wall makes its own statement; it can co-exist in beautiful harmony with new surroundings. Recreating its own life, these decaying objects remind us that all things have value, just like every one of us has value."
"A powerful image illuminates and resonates with that captured moment in time and place. Though it may capture time, the image itself, becomes timeless. There is no separation between the viewer, the experience or the image. We become one."

LAS CUATRO PAREDES

Trabajo en arte fotografico:

Publicación periodística.

Las fotos recientes de Bill Ipsan funcionan tanto como las cosas que ellas representan, estructuras largas y abstractas. Combinando composición mínima con máximo detalle, de superficie plana pero con percepción de profundidad, cosas y expresiones parecen separarse mientras la dimensión de los objetos parece converger.
Dentro de la rica historia de fotografiar viejas paredes, las imágenes de Ipsan también entregan un contenido cultural con un toque psicológico. Por ejemplo, así como las ideas de Freudian comenzaron a influenciar el desarrollo de la cultura Americana en Estados Unidos, la sombra del McCarthylismo acortó severamente los documentales y otras formas de expresión aclamando cambio social. Ante tal obstáculo político muchos fotógrafos durante la guerra fría literalmente dirigieron sus cámaras hacia estas superficies de impresionismo abstracto y estilos introspectivos de arte que surgieron mas relevantes.
El trabajo de Bill Ipsan explora esta clase de revelaciones y secretismos. Dobleces gastados, deshilados, anuncios rotos, grafiti y el reflejo del flash de la cámara del artista sobre superficies reflejantes representa el acto de ver a través de los hoyos de un colador. La aparente composición sin detalle definido, también provee sin embargo un sentido musical y ritmo subconsciente de oportunidad y selección en el trayectoIn.

EDIFICE COMPLEX

Edifice Complex, Bill Ipsan's recent photographs function like the things they depict, large abstract structures. Combining minimal composition with maximal detail, flatness of surface with perception of depth, forms and meanings seem to diverge while the dimension of objects appears to converge.
Since there is a rich history of photographing weathered walls, Ipan's imagery also delivers cultural content with a psychological bent. For example, in the 1950s just as Freudian ideas began to influence the development of popular culture in the United States, spectacles of McCarthyism curtailed documentary and other forms of work that advocated social change. Up against a political wall, many photographers during that period literally turned their cameras toward these surfaces as abstract expressionism and introspective modes of work became more prevalent.
Ipsan's project explores these kinds of revelations and concealments. Frayed seams, tread marks, tattered billboards, graffiti, and the glare of the artist's own flash upon reflective surfaces, depict an act of seeing riddled with implication. Ipsan's framing of seemingly random detail, however, provides a musical sense of subconscious rhythms of chance, and choice, along the way.