paulfarmerartist.com
My work begins with macro photography of lichen—well-known bioindicators of air quality that respond sensitively to pollution, particularly nitrogen oxides. Because they obtain nutrients directly from the air and lack protective structures that would otherwise filter what they absorb, pollutants can accumulate in their tissues and their communities can shift in measurable ways, allowing scientists to assess air-quality patterns across a region. From that starting point, my work treats the environment as a system: repetition, variation, and accumulation function as both formal language and ecological signal.
That attention to structure led me into digitally constructed, Op-Art–informed photo collages and later time-based animations with sound. Josef Albers’ Structural Constellations series—geometric constructions that destabilize space through line, repetition, and slight deviation—initially opened this direction for me, offering a model of rigorous visual inquiry grounded in how the eye organizes form. Building from my own photographic source material, I translate organic imagery into geometric architectures that hover between depth and flatness, stillness and motion.
Over time, these collages evolved into pattern studies that examine how rhythm, constraint, and minor disruption can hold attention. I’m drawn to the point where visual order becomes slightly unstable—precise, but never fully settled—because that instability mirrors how we experience larger systems: we sense their logic, yet we also feel their fragility. Pattern becomes a way to make pressure visible—how repetition can be soothing, relentless, or even disorienting depending on scale and context. By pushing optical structure to the edge of legibility, I’m inviting viewers to linger with uncertainty and notice the moment when perception shifts from recognition to questioning.
Artist Bio:
Paul Farmer received a Bachelor of Art & Design from the NC State College of Design and an MFA from Western Carolina University. He has participated in artist residencies at The Bascom Center, Vermont Studio Center, I-Park, and Keystone Art Space. His work has been exhibited across the United States. He is a full-time visual arts faculty member at Mitchell Community College in Statesville, North Carolina, where he teaches 2D foundations, digital media, and lens-based media.