Illusion This image is one of my favorites. The effect of pieces of differently-toned paper floating above the canvas. Beneath the paper, soft shadows give a feeling of depth. When I showed a print of this image to the owner of a gallery along the Place de Vosges in Paris, he reached over and touched the print, so effective was the three dimensional look. Print Size: 17 x 19 inches

Portrait in small mosaic tiles This is Patternism, a technique combining of sub-patterns that together create an image. There are many colors in this image and therefore many sub-patterns that combine to make the whole. Perhaps you can see a mouth, and a nose and maybe a chin. Whether near of far you can tell it is an image of a shape that you recognize. Now move back from the picture and you will see that you are looking at a face. The face is actually a statue in a museum. Print Size: 17 x 23 inches

Portrait in shades of brown This began as a sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum. This image illustrates the concept of "Patternism." The original picture is reduced to a set of patterns, in this case, glowing squares in different shades of brown. Up close, it looks like an abstract image. To view this picture properly, stand back fifteen feet or so, until you can see the details emerge. Print Size: 17 x 23 inches

Sorrow Print Size: 17 x 21 inches

Reliquary head of St. Yrieix A few words about how I work. I see myself as an artist rather than a photographer. Taking the picture is just the first step. From there, it's sometimes a long path to the final image. Some images go through many steps (stages) until the final version is reached. Sometimes, a series of variations will be produced along the way This is the way that Picasso worked, always open to new possibilities, variations, and methods. The image above started as a black and white photograph. It was then reduced to a cubist form, and colors were filled in. Each section of flat color has a thin outline to help accent its shape. Print Size: 17 x 27 inches

Picasso meets Frank Lloyd Wright This is a Roman face. To the left, something reminiscent of Picasso. To right, the face becomes lines that remind me of the decorative touches of Frank Lloyd Wright. I don't keep notes, so the process for a picture like this is lost, and it can't be duplicated. It's partly from laziness, and an unwillingness to accumulate a lot of notes. But there's a third, and even stronger reason. When I do an effect like this, I will just use it on one or two pictures, then move on. I don't want to be known for a particular special effect or for a particular series of pictures. Another photographer once accused me of not having a distinctive style to my work. It was meant as a criticism. I took it as a compliment. Print Size: 17 x 20 inches

Tony recently made some major changes to the software we use to publish his art. He has made it easy to display a whole bunch of images on the page and the page can have a vertical or horizontal orientation.

I've been working on a suggestion that we organize Tony's work into themes. Each theme could be an exhibit in a gallery. I'm partial to displaying Tony Karp's work in a horizontal orientation on-line - it's how you would view it in a physical gallery. The drawback to this method of on-line display is it looks great on a large screen but not as good on a smaller one. As you view this page you many have scroll both sideways and up and down to see the entire image. Look for a description below each image.

But in the end the most powerful way to appreciate Tony Karp's work is to view a print hanging on a wall.