About

Joseph Westrupp profile photo

My name is Joseph Westrupp. I’ve been making art in one form or another since childhood. Drawing first, painting, then writing, photography, and dabbling in music on the way. Creating is important to me.

These days my preferred medium is digital photography (if not strictly photography, at least based on it). I love the combination of artistic expression and technology, both of which have always fascinated me.

Even better, none of the hassle of setting up canvases, paints, and solvents, having to clean up a paint-spattered bomb-site, then storing the canvases. Not to denigrate painting, I had a great time with it, but there’s no comparison to digital work.

Actually, painting’s informed my current style. I have no urge to make plain, accurate representations of the things I shoot, I embellish with color, and add and subtract elements as aesthetic whim would have it, just like my paintings.

My work’s evolved considerably from when I bought my first camera. I started with naive, over-processed photographs, and since learned that just because it’s extremely easy to turn a color or contrast slider up doesn’t mean you should.

Style developed as I focussed on landscape imagery for years, then went though a phase of doing only skulls. I’ve settled on the surreal abstract work you can see here, and it feels like I’ve finally found artistic home.