IN THE STUDIO WITH THEO COULOMBE

Victoria Hood, Founder

Feb 2, 20233 min read

Updated: Apr 17, 2024

A Photo Essay on Emotion, Empathy, and Theory of Mind

Between Two Lakes, Tree, Rocks, Grass, Water, Fog and Time,

Salisbury, CT 2021

pigment print from hi res digital image on archival rag paper

In his latest photography exhibition, WHERE'S MY FOCUS, artist Theo Coulombe explores how landscapes respond to his artistic sensitivity. In the five years since he left Brooklyn, New York for Litchfield County, Connecticut, Theo has devoted his spring and fall mornings to searching for that right moment when the fog falls and rises from the earth. His mind often wonders into fantasy, filling him with what he thinks each landscape means or what the landscapes mean to him. Perhaps that is why he and many other artists are attracted to landscapes as metaphors?

When he was younger, filmmakers Terrance Malick and Stanley Kubrick inspired his love for landscapes. Two of his favorite films, for example, are Malick's Thin Red Line and Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, which are both "sublime" examples of landscapes as historic cues and as subtexts to the narrative. He also finds the films to be moving embodiments of the history of landscape painting and of photography.

Theo's own landscapes, therefore, are attempts to capture this kind of quiet awe at even the simplest of scenes or views that his two cameras, a 1938 and a 1936 Deardoff, connects him with.

Imperfection

'FKUP 022022' Cole Rd. and Cole Rd,

Sharon, CT, 2022

pigment print from 'accidental double exposed' 4x5" film negative on archival rag paper

"In the past I understood the process but not the language of photography or landscape. Good thing I never threw the negatives away. Now I select what stages in the process are important and disregard the imperfections."

Theo Coulombe in Conversation with Cool Hunting

Quality

Looking East From Amenia Union Rd,

Sharon, CT, 2022

pigment print from 4x5" film negative on archival rag paper

"There is an almost Japanese quality to some of his compositions, in the way that objects almost seem to float in space."

Writer Charles Dubow

Attraction & Movement

Strong Point, Top Of Tyler Rd,

Millerton, NY, 2021

pigment print from 4x5" film negative on archival rag paper

“I’m not looking for perfection. I am looking for what moves me. I am particularly attracted to the interplay of shadow and fog in nature. I am looking for certain visual cues—texture, depth, color, contrast.”

Theo Coulombe in Conversation with Millbrook Magazine

Understanding

Three Landscape Painters off Pugsley Hill Rd,

Stanford, NY, 2021

pigment print from 4x5" film negative on archival rag paper

"His talent as an artist himself enables him to understand another artist’s work and philosophy."

Writer Joseph Montebello

Interaction

Looking SE from Sharon Station Rd,

Amenia, NY, 2022

pigment print from 8x10" film negative on archival rag paper

"My interaction with that format and the Deardorff camera in particular comes down to basics. You become part of the camera. You use a dark cloth and look at the ground glass on the back of—not through—the camera. You become an interior of the eye. You’re upside down and backward. You’re forced to realize the composition and the groundlessness is the canvas. On the other end of the process, the 8×10 film size has a potential to record minute details and, in the absence of details, amazing tonalities."

Theo Coulombe in Conversation with Cool Hunting

About Theo Coulombe

Portrait by Maria Baronova

Since receiving his MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, and after a stint in Budapest, Hungary, Theo moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn in 1993 and began working in the arts and photography starting as a studio assistant to digital media artist Paul Garrin and as black and white printer for artist-photographer John Coplans.

Theo's solo and collaborative works are included in numerous collections and have been exhibited with the New Britain Museum of American Art, Imperial War Museum in London, Tang Teaching Museum, Aldrich Museum, Margaret Bodell Gallery, and AOT Project Salon. After living in Williamsburg for twenty-three years, he moved to Sharon, CT, where he opened Standard Space gallery in 2017. Previously, he ran Brooklynphoto Studio and the One Night Only Art series. He has organized solo exhibitions of works by, Ayana Evens, Tsedaye Makonnen, Shantell Martin, Ghost of a Dream, Will Hutnick, Tei Blow, Sean McElroy, Maria Baranova, John-Paul Philippe, Lisa Williams, Jessie English, among others.

Follow @theo_coulombe