I'm a multi-disciplinary artist based in St. Paul.  My practice includes video art, filmmaking, and photography.  I use collage to mix photographic and painterly concerns and to push the boundaries of photography.  

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 For this series, I began with photographs of the roots of toppled trees that line the banks of the Mississippi River near my home.   The roots were washed and eroded by years of rising/falling water exposing rich colors and deep textures.  I start with a single photograph that is generally quite plain all by itself.  But when mirrored and multiplied in intricate patterns, it blossoms into a new and beautiful image.

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 Patterns, weaves, otherworldly organic shapes and primordial forms are revealed - as if they have always existed in the inner life of these trees, and are now unveiled.  They look like roots, of course, but they have now evolved into something mysterious and ancient.​​

                                                                                                                                                                                 James Byrne