“I was outside, look what I made! It’s really interesting and I worked really hard on it.”

Wait, that doesn’t count as an artist’s statement these days? Hang on a sec while I craft a few paragraphs…

I’m essentially a landscape photographer, but I'm rarely out with my cameras on a sunny day. I prefer difficult weather, unusual light, and places that are either accessible but forgotten, or familiar locations at unfamiliar times, like Venice at 5am instead of noon. Beaches in winter. The building down the street that's being slowly swallowed by fifty years of English ivy. I'm drawn to places and moments that might be under your nose but that most people might never actually see or notice.

Much of my work contains subject matter that is out of place, such as boats on land, machinery in open water, vegetation taking over structures. There are no people in my images, nor are there clear markers of time, location, or scale. The absence of these reference points detaches the viewer from a fixed moment and hopefully sparks additional contemplation, while knowing that these are real places and conditions.

My work is not intended to convey any political or social message. Plenty of other artists take up that mantle. My images are an escape, both for myself and hopefully the viewer, grounded in observation rather than commentary.

I shoot with the intent of printing for exhibition, and where practical I print for the space where the work will be displayed. I take great care to produce high quality, carefully edited images that will be framed and seen in person.

However, my ceramic work came out of a deliberate decision to create something I cannot fully control. Pottery is an art form where you don’t become attached to anything, as it can break or fail at any moment during the creation process. I started learning pottery as a search for a counterpoint to my meticulous photographic process. I found it, especially in raku and other alternate firing processes. In reality though, I am finding that the same education, attention to detail, and meticulous technique is required to make my intentions match what is in my mind as I slam a lump of clay onto the wheel.

I am still very much learning ceramics and searching for my style (and having a lot of fun and some shoulder pain along the way), but I feel my pottery style is beginning to follow my photographic style, with counterpoints of light and shadow, familiar forms rendered in unusual ways, and letting nature and physics do their thing (or at least with some propane helping it along.) I feel that my images and objects are related enough in concept and execution that they can exist in harmony in the same space.

Artist’s Statement

Artist’s Bio

Ted Gormley was born and raised in Rockaway Beach, New York, a suburb of Queens wholly situated on a peninsula and surrounded by water and at the time, recently decommissioned military infrastructure. He spent his childhood at the beach, and as soon as he could ride a bike began exploring the vacated bunkers, missile silos, and runways that he and his friends called their backyard.

They would ride through hangars that still contained old planes, and offices where seagulls were making nests on file cabinets and typewriters. The summer storms, the occasional beached trawler, and overgrown military buildings fostered his affinity for the conditions that were to become the primary subject matter of his photography. In 1986 at the age of fourteen he was given a used Yashica rangefinder camera, and his first inclination was to photograph those places he loved to explore.

In 1990 Ted graduated from The High School of Art and Design in Manhattan, and attended Queens College, City University of New York, where he majored in fine art photography. He also took college classes to become a certified divemaster and then an emergency medical technician. He left college in 1995 to work as an EMT in the NYC 911 system, and in the summer of 1998 he was sworn in as a New York City Firefighter.

Although he never stopped taking photos or participating the arts, in 2003 he had to stop printing in the darkroom. His emerging sinus problems stemming from exposure to toxins at the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001 and the following months caused adverse reactions to darkroom chemistry. Unable to find a suitable alternative process, and with digital photography still being somewhat limiting, he almost gave up on black and white printing. Until he came across Piezography. This system, which effectively reinvented black and white fine art printing, enabled him to produce highly detailed, luminous prints from both scanned negatives and digital files that exceeded what he could do in a darkroom, and it didn’t cause his nose to bleed. He took several workshops with Jon and Cathy Cone, the inventors of Piezography, and under their tutelage honed his entire photographic process for museum-quality output. He has said that he learned more about photography at Cone Editions than in four years of college.

Despite his growth and continuing education during this time, his photographic pursuits took a back seat to the fire service. However, Ted’s extremely active career with the FDNY ended prematurely when his 9/11 medical issues finally prevented him from carrying out the duties of a professional firefighter.

Ted retired from the FDNY in 2017 after 22 years as a first responder and moved to Virginia Beach, and settled on the shores of Chesapeake Bay (he tells people “It’s Rockaway in Virginia!”) where he crews a racing sailboat and seeks out rough water in his sea kayak. Water has always been central to his life, and it shows up constantly in his art.

In the years since retiring from civil service, he has been able to focus more fully on his art practice— refining his photographic skills, continuing his art education, and expanding into ceramics, which he has been working in since the latter part of 2024. His ceramic practice has started to focus heavily on raku pottery and other alternative firing processes, and he is building a body of work for eventual exhibition.

Artist’s CV

Education

  • 1991-1995- Queens College, City University of New York

  • 1987-1990- The High School of Art and Design, New York, NY

Related Experience

  • 1994-1995- Charter Member, Board of Directors, Rockaway Artist’s Alliance, New York

  • 1994-1995- Darkroom Technician, Queens College, City University of New York

  • 1987-1994- Graphic Artist, Personali-tees Silk Screening, Queens, NY

  • 1987-2018- Freelance Photographer/Graphic Artist, Various Projects

Juror/Curator

  • October 1996- Juror, Moons and Moonlight multi media exhibit, Rockaway Artist’s Alliance Gallery, Queens NY

Solo Exhibitions

  • December 2022- Special Services Library, Virginia Beach, VA

  • December 2021- The Gallery at the Meyra Oberndorf Central Library, Virginia Beach, VA

Group Exhibitions

  • March 2019- Prospect Schools Silent Art Auction, Sunset Yards Campus, Brooklyn, NY

  • September 2007- Snug Harbor Annual Fence Show, Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden, Staten Island, NY

  • December 2000- Silent Art Auction, New York City Fire Museum, New York, NY

  • December 1996- A Celebration of Winter, Rockaway Artist’s Alliance Gallery, Queens, NY

  • June 1995- Juried Exhibition, Rockaway Artist’s Alliance Gallery, Queens, NY

  • May 1995- Focus- Special Projects in Photography, Klapper Gallery, Flushing, NY

Awards

  • December 2000- Second highest price realized from the sale of a single piece of art, Silent Art Auction, New York City Fire Museum, New York

Continuing Education/Workshops Attended

  • October 2025- Platinum Palladium Printing with Pradip Malde, Cone Editions, East Topsham, VT

  • August 2023- Big Sur Black and White Workshop with Paul Sanders, Monterey, CA

  • June 2023- Direct to Plate Photogravure, Cone Editions, East Topsham, VT

  • January 2023- Venice Creative Workshop with Jonathan Critchley, Venice, Italy

  • August 2022- Icebergs by Boat with Talor Stone, Ilulissat, Greenland

  • October 2018- Piezography Printing Workshop, Cone Editions, East Topsham, VT

  • June 2011- Piezography Printing Workshop, Cone Editions, East Topsham, VT

  • September 2007- Piezography Basics, Cone Editions, East Topsham, VT

  • 1998-2002- Black and White Photography Program with Lisa Crumb, New York, NY

Press

Collections

  • Cone Editions Studio Collection, Vermont

  • Queens College Art Department Permanent Collection, New York

  • The High School of Art and Design Alumni Collection, New York

  • Steven Huie, New York

  • Andrew and Jaqueline Green, Esqs. New York

  • Xosé Alvarez, Madrid

  • Jon and Cathy Cone, Vermont