Photograph by Frank Lee Craig© 2014 Margret Kentgens-Craig

Moments in Transition
Photographs and Design

by Frank Lee Craig

on display September 17 through November 15, 2014

Frank Lee Craig – his photography and other art

The tendency to abstraction and a painterly approach defines Craig’s photography.
Much of his photography and other artwork explores the moment and transition in time, the transitory, and layers of personal history and an economic and design history of Europe and the United States.

By the end of the Twentieth Century, when Craig’s photography intensified, many factories, mills, and warehouses had been abandoned and left behind for deterioration or demolition. As the artist became fascinated with such structures and their history, he began photographing them. Time after time, Craig ventured into old and often dangerously dilapidated buildings. His intention was not documentation – but an exploration of those shapes and elements suggested by the transition witnessed, or suggested, during his excursions.

The artist used an analogue Nikon SLR camera and rarely modified his negatives or prints. The photographs are an authentic reflection of what he saw through his lens.

Since 2004, Frank Lee Craig’s work has been shown in the Research Triangle at Glance Gallery, Bickett Gallery at the Hudson, Mars Gallery at DUMC. In Germany he showed at the Hattingen City Gallery (Kunstverein) and the Praxis am Volksgarten Oberhausesn. Most recently, the city of Bottrop has extended their inviatation for an extensive solo exhibition in their City Gallery in 2016.

The exhibition at Through This Lens has been designed and curated in collaboration with Margret Kentgens-Craig.

Artist's bio

Besides his profession as architect, partner, and principal with Cline Davis Architects, later Cline Design Associates, Frank Lee Craig developed side careers as visual artist and musician. As a Country Rock, Americana, and Blues singer/songwriter he performed lead guitar in his band SPOT and is documented on two CDs. His significant volume of artwork consists of mostly abstract multimedia collages, drawings, paintings, sculpture, and jewelry design.

Frank Lee Craig grew up in Raleigh, NC. He graduatied from the North Carolina State University School of Design where at the time, Basic Design instruction was firmly based on Josef Albers' elementary Bauhaus pedagogy. Among Craig's teachers were distinguished artists Joe Cox and George Bireline both of whom also had a strong impact upon Craig's perception of art and design.