Garnett photographed his first Fingerprint Portrait in 1999. He took his brother Matthew's fingerprint and projected this fingerprint on Matthew's face in a dark room while shooting a roll of film. This new form of contemporary portraiture has contributed to the Fingerprint Portrait in breadth over the years.
"Photography is a cake walk compared to painting," the artist once stated. "With painting the artist is tasked with fabricated the illusion of reality when painting representationally, and the most successful in this discipline can paint photographically to a certain extent. With photography you just get the light right and snap away. There are now 10 billion cameras in the world for 6 billion people, and I maintain that every single human being has an absolute minimum of ten earth shattering photographs at the tip of his finger. The best photographs capture moments and are therefore journalistic in their power. The idea of creating a 'high' art market around photography is laughable in most cases, but there are talents out there who set themselves apart. I'm more interested in remarkable painters and sculptors who can take photographs because they can make something from nothing in a way that straight photographers will never understand, in much the same way that journalists and the best fiction writers are in completely different leagues and arenas. The funny thing is that most 'news' is a fallacy and often more fictional than great novels, but I digress."
The artist has taken Fingerprint Portrait photograph commissions so please email with inquiries - sandygarnett@sandygarnett.com.