Michel Tabori was born in Paris in 1956 and grew up in New York. He spent the better part of the last thirty years working as a director, producer and cinematographer living and working all around the world. Tabori began working as a visual artist only a little over four years ago, and is currently based in Venice, California. The artist’s rapid maturity and clarity of vision in this new medium are due, in part, to the fact that he has incorporated his cinematic expertise and visual creativity to the current process. In fact, much of his work starts out as a series of photographs.

Each one begins as an inspiration, occasioned by nature, by a person, by music. Not surprisingly, all are preoccupied with effects of light and motion. Some photographs are of forests, shot from a motorcycle at 70 miles an hour while traveling through Wyoming’s Big Horn Mountains. Some are of landscapes reflected off the spur of a boot or the barrel of a gun. Some are portraits of people who have touched Tabori’s life. All are influenced by a sense of music, of rhythm. The photographs are then digitized, the images distilled to an elemental, abstract essence. Essential details are emphasized and enlarged. Colors are exaggerated and distorted to better reflect the underlying truth of the experience. The images are then transferred to canvas, where Tabori paints on them. They are then poured with resin. The end result is work best described as “mixed-media.” It is, and is not, photography, digital imaging and painting.

CV