ARTISTS > Roger C. Tucker III

My practice focuses on how I see the world and how the world sees me.These works investigate my lifelong concerns about the physical, historical and spiritual links and influences culled from the dynamic urban/suburban environment of the New Jersey/New York metropolitan area.

I began taking photographs in the late 1960’s while attending Arts High School in Newark, New Jersey. Exhibiting and selling my first portraits of friends and relatives at a local arts and crafts show contributed to an understanding that photographic images, no matter how naïve, commanded interest and communicated to complete strangers the powerful "connection" between the artist and his subject matter.

Some of the photographs were originally taken with a 35mm camera. The images were then digitally scanned, assembled and printed. These photographs include a traditional landscape, cityscape and portrait. The portrait illustrates the subject’s connectedness to his surroundings and provides insights to his frame-of-mind. These early montages suggest an affiliation either through similarity of material, motion, color and location and sometimes via historical links.

I use the term "Scapes" to describe the subject matter, settings and arrangement of his photographic montages and single images.

The Scapes present the visual equivalent of psychological mindscapes, or tableaus, by the juxtaposition of the larger image to the related smaller images. The idea of barriers, real or imagined, is also explored through these juxtapositions. Sometimes race is the issue. Other times it’s the quest to look at something differently by isolating it through enlargement.

The pixilation and abstraction in some of the compositions result from the digital enlargement calling attention to the technical process but it also gives the viewer different ways of experiencing the image, depending on their proximity to the piece. Messages from the signage that surrounds us figure prominently or sometimes subtlety, in some of the Scapes. Signs that direct or warn take on new meaning in some of the images.

EDUCATION:
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, BFA, 1974
Pratt Institute, MS, Communications Design, 2003
NYU-SCPS Art Business Certificate, 2012

BOARD MEMBERSHIPS:
Glass Roots Center for Glass Art, Former Board Chair
The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, Former Alumni Trustee

CONTACT:
rogerctucker3@gmail.com
(201) 306-3670

GROUP SHOWS:
2025
• THE GREAT CRAFT GATHERING, Peters Valley School of Craft, Sandyston, NJ
2024
• THE GREAT CRAFT GATHERING, Peters Valley School of Craft, Sandyston, NJ
2023
• One River School for Art, James Howe Fundraiser, Montclair, NJ
2022
• CULTURAL CONNECTIONS, The Gallery Space, Rahway, NJ
2010
• HAIR TACTICS, Jersey City Museum, Jersey City, NJ
2008
• SPRAWL, Jersey City Museum, Jersey City, NJ
• SPRAWL: A LOOK AT THE OVERBUILDING OF NEW JERSEY, The Arts Guild of
Rahway, Rahway, NJ
2007
• CONTEMPORARY ALTERNATIVES, Kislac Building, Newark, NJ
• PHOTOGRAPHY AS ART…MORE THAN A THOUSAND WORDS, Group Photography Show,
Canvas Paper and Stone Gallery, New York, NY
• ART IN THE ATRIUM, Morristown, NJ
2006
• LANDSCOPE, Painting and Photography, The Arts Guild of Rahway, Rahway, NJ
2005
• FIRST LOOK 2005, Emerging Artists, NJ Center for Visual Arts, Summit, NJ
• FOTONOW 2005, The Goat, South Orange, NJ
2004
• 23rd ANNUAL METRO SHOW, City Without Walls, Newark, NJ, The show traveled
nationally for one year.
• RED VELVET CAKE, ART IN THE ATRIUM, Morristown, NJ
2003
• 11th ANNUAL MONTCLAIR ARTISTS OPEN STUDIO TOURS, Montclair, NJ
• PHOTOGRAPHY NOW, The Dancing Goat, South Orange, NJ
• ANALOG/DIGITAL, City Without Walls Gallery, Newark, NJ
• ARCHI+TEXTURE, Brooklyn Fireproof Gallery, Williamsburg, NY
2002
• ART IN THE ATRIUM, Morristown, NJ
• DREAM STATES, New York, NY
• 10TH ANNUAL MONTCLAIR ARTISTS OPEN STUDIO TOURS, Montclair, NJ
• SPOTLIGHT ON AFRICAN AMERICAN ART, Eclectic Connection Fine Art Gallery,
Summit, NJ
2001-2002
• FRAGMENTS GROUP PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBIT, Callahan Center, Brooklyn, NY
2001
• D.U.M.B.O ART UNDER THE BRIDGE FESTIVAL, Brooklyn, NY
2000
• ART IN THE ATRIUM, Morristown, NJ