5,000 X 3800 pixel 5X7 inch capture. Does many pixels = fine art?
So why do I like it?
It's attractive of course, just as as a feather is. That is, after all, what was imaged and that's executed well. But, "So what?" you may well ask! That gives us picture but not necessarily art, in the sense that I would now offer.
What's there?
The pictures shows repeated elements, the veins and the black regions crossing the whole structure one set to one side and a matching set opposite and balancing the first. However there is not perfect symmetry as disorder disrupts the expected positions of things. Veins break ranks and bend backwards in an apparently wrong direction.
The entire feather sweeps from left to right. It twist its torso like a flamingo dancer, but only when I tell you so. There's nothing annoying or exciting about this feather. However it
is attractive.
How might it work? Meditative Art!
With this picture enlarged to 40" x 40" the little feather becomes visible in a different way. The sub-structure is revealed and is enticing. One can get lost in following different paths and then moving somewhere else. It's in a way a kind of Rorschach landscape, a window to no immediate or biased imperatives, in which our imagination can wander. In fact, it has the potential to be open to planting our own ideas and questions of paths we might have taken or need to take. So such a picture can become a gymnasium in which to test and exercise our own issues. The feather itself is, (in this particular case), art that is neutral to any cultural or other position in life we might take.
Other art may give mostly entertainment, ratify our ideas, celebrate the celebrated or seek to push us in one direction or another. However, after getting our attention, art should invite is back to re-look and "see" more each time we visit. In that "meandering with out mind" is the rich potential of art as I see it.
In this case, the art is attractive, decorative, easily in harmony with most decor. So for sure it would be pleasant to look at. More important for this picture by Jim Galli is what might occasionally come next. For in this photograph, I believe there's a unique potential for giving us more if we reciprocate the effort. The detailed structure of the feather might get us to stay longer and so take us to get to another place, something we create. This is still a modest picture. It doesn't call attention to any immediate meaning, message or obvious sensuality. However, on further consideration it can be all that and more. I'd call it meditative art!
Asher