M I C H A E L     M O L L I C K

Michael Mollick is a self-educated, often unemployed, free-lance philosopher... who, because of the difficulties inherent in that line of work, namely the lack of a noticeable audience or income, has been forced to 'moonlight' as an artist, photographer, and digital FX technician. He earned a respectable living as a photo-realistic painter throughout his twenties, then found the digital world irresistible and relatively free from noxious fumes and stained clothing.

He has worked semi-steady gigs as a portrait photographer and a graphics professional for the past fifteen years, his work evolving into areas of 3D, animation, and motion film f/x, during which time he continues to act as the 'middle-man' for his pharmaceutical-executive wife's pocket-book and CG companies like Adobe (Photoshop), Kinetix (3dsmax) and Nvidia (Graphics Hardware).

Michael accredits three events in consecutive years, starting in 1985 which forever changed his vision and his humanity. At twenty years old, his untamed creative energies led him to wander aimlessly across northern Japan in a ridiculous and premature "Kerouac-u" journey of self-discovery.

Already skilled as a painter with a few encouraging sales under his belt, he decided to add photography to the long list of desired skills he would teach himself, firmly committed as he was to never entering another classroom. Of course, this was a situation to which most higher institutions of learning at that time gave their full support, in light of his record of a single drunken semester at Georgia State University which left him with a 1.2 GPA.

Inspired by this beautiful, ancient land and people - curious at its exotic philosophies and temples, he tossed away his camera's Instruction manual which was written in Conji and therefore useless, and set out to capture this strange land.

His first pictures were, of course, abysmal failures but by the time of the first event which truly changed his life, he had grown competent enough to experiment with his own lighting for a few, very special images which he still treasures. Though under-exposed, one sees at least his primitive attempt to capture the awe and reverence he felt in the days following the birth of the first of his three, exceptionally beautiful daughters.

Then, in 1986 he met and fell in love with the woman who would become his true life-partner.

"My biggest fan - my harshest critic", as he describes his wife, Susan. She gave him a step-son of tremendous character, daughters number two and three, then both were surprised by a late entry, a final son now age two.

Finally, in 1987, following the birth of his second little girl, the family moved back to Atlanta, Georgia., the city they would permanently call home.

In Autumn of that year came the final casual event that reformed his life's path. Michael visited a dear friend from his school days who shared his passion for art. She had recently earned a graphics degree and thought he would be interested to see some of the amazing CG technology which was becoming available for the computer.

"The memory stands like a beacon, pouring forth light in a direction I could no-longer ignore. One to which I'm now FIRMLY committed.

My friend put a graduated color fill into a circle. It took a minute to render. I was astonished at the blazing speed of this art-box and I had to quell an instant of extreme envy that she had the use of such an awesome tool, and I didn't. I resolved then and there to learn this new technology.

I made her write the name down before I left.

She had spelled out ADOBE... and for me, it has become the most powerful reason the computer exists.

I can always paint, and I still do from time to time, bit how often have artists down through history had the opportunity to creatively innovate the use of a newly discovered tool of such immense communicative power that it can totally rewrite the way our society lives, learns, breathes and dreams, within a span of a mere twenty years?... Maybe, one other time - when some "Neanderthal" first used an animal pelt to spread blood across his cave wall!...

Any artist/photographer alive today and involved in this medium has a chance to be a part of history. Helyn Davenport is making it right here on this very sight.

Michael's latest photographic images are a blend of generated fractals which he uses to build dimension and texture onto recognizable human forms. He suggests that patterns of complex chaos are all around us. They are an integral part of any aesthetic experience, found in macro photography, in artistic genres from Impressionism to Cubism, in the athletic grace and movement of dance, and in the rhythmic flow of sound.

"Humans are challenged by chaos, I think, because we crave the mystery, the challenges of the unknown and the complex. Its part of our Evolution. I'm thinking that aesthetics might be nothing more than recognizable patterns found within the 'chaos' which attracts our senses.

We know that our brains can't master the complexities of dappled sunlight on a forest floor, but neither can we simply accept the riotous confusion of contrasting lights and shadow. Sensing any kind of a pattern gives us a sense of the overall structure. When we recognize the sunlight and the floor takes shape, we suddenly know where we are. We don't need to see the thick canopy of leaves and tree limbs above us to know that they are there. The quanta mathematics of all of it is far too complex for our tiny brains to hold. It is enough to recognize our own place in the equations and to get a sense, at least, of the deeper mathematics we can choose to worship or photograph or calculate some other time.

Maybe aesthetics is simply a sense of the "God-mathematics".

For Michael, a tool is a tool, be it camel-hair, chemical film or a digitally encoded mathematical formula which expresses a self-similar geometrical pattern (Fractal-Art). He's personally obsessed in a lifelong pursuit to create aesthetic forms and images and his vision demands that he use any and every tool he can master to realize that creative process.