Adam J. Trabold had a photography exhibition titled “The Inner Wilderness,” at the Milligan Art Gallery in Lower Derthick Hall. The exhibit ran from Feb. 19 to Mar. 3 and consisted of traditional black and white photography, images created through experimental photographic processes, and avant-garde images created in collaboration with artificial intelligence algorithms and applications.
The unique pictures and images depict different figures and patterns that don’t occur in the natural world. Trabold described his images as “off the wall.” He prides himself on this aspect of his work because it’s something new that people don’t see all the time and that’s very hard to replicate.
“Not every image here is specifically for me, but they’re more for allowing there to be something people can come in, look at and can say ‘I feel that,’” he said.
Trabold’s exhibit contained a lot of images that have dark tones and patterns attached to them. This is rooted from his own personal trials and tribulations he has had over the years, and he uses his art as an outlet.
“A lot of the stuff I’ve seen over the past three years has really impacted me to start making a series that puts my thoughts and things I can’t necessarily say into images…. It was just good to get a lot of my feelings on the wall and out of my head.”
He explained that putting together this exhibit was “tricky” because he was dealing with so many different mediums; however, he is satisfied with how it came out, even though he is his own worst critic. Trabold described his work as “containing a lot of experimentation, chaoticness, and this weird eerie sense of beauty that is misunderstood.”
The images on display are collections of pieces that Trabold has worked on since his senior year in 2019. It took him a while to put all of the pieces together and to get approved for an art show, so he wanted to make sure it was of the utmost quality.
“I can’t just throw stuff up on the wall and that be it. From my artist statement to my titles, I have to be thinking about the story behind each piece. This was a fun one to figure out, because it was so off the wall.” Trabold said it has been a relief to receive overwhelmingly positive feedback.
“It feels really good,” he said. “Especially when in the last couple of years the A.I movement has gotten a lot of crap from artists who think it’s a cheap way to go about art. So, to see all the positive feedback and to hear it from people it has been really nice to hear.”
Trabold is a Pennsylvania native who has made Johnson City his home after graduating from Milligan and becoming Milliagn’s Photography Instructor and Artist-in-Residence. He got into the field of photography after changing majors during his sophomore year from Mathematics Education to Communications. He had to take a basic photography class as a course requirement and that’s when he began to fall in love with photography.
He also said he believes it was “in his genes” to be a photographer. He remembered his mother had a small passion for photography. She always had a small camera with her to capture moments of him and his family on vacation and other important moments. He also found out later in his life that his grandfather, on his father’s side, was a photographer in World War II.
Looking ahead, Trabold has the goal to get into graduate school to continue his interest in all things art. His overall goal is to one day teach photography.
Headline image from Trabold’s art show, “Fingerprint of God” an LSDA C-41 process color print displaying an experimental ‘film-soup- technique’.