Buster the Zen Cat

Portrait of Buster the Zen Cat--The only art discipline Bill Bolin didn’t master as he worked to earn a bachelor’s degree in fine art from Louisiana Tech University was photography. He became proficient in painting, print-making, drawing and just about every other method. So, it’s particularly noteworthy that now, after he retired from a management career in the insurance and managed care industries, he’s undertaken art photography with a vengeance. Currently, it's strictly his only art work.

Bolin’s photography derives from abstract impressionism. His subjects and environments are typically outdoors, spontaneous and colorful. His pictures capture a scene or object as if he had only glanced at it for a minute. Working delicately between the lines of pure abstraction and an impression of reality, Bolin transforms and freezes a subject or setting. He uses perspective, light and motion to capture unique images. Often, viewers can’t precisely tell what an object is for certain in one of his photos. He urges his viewers to “look again,” as they consider what they might be seeing. His images are lively with light and color. He’s an accomplished “street shooter,” walking in parks and neighborhoods in search of his next idea.

Born in the mid-fifties, Bolin and his military family traveled and lived extensively in Europe and parts of the US before they settled down in small-town Louisiana. His boyhood was bucolic. He considers himself bookish as a young man, interested in reading, comic books and movies. He admits an early fascination with art. After college, where he received both a BA in English and a BFA in studio arts, he had a mid-management career that ended with the onset of the pandemic. Forced to take early retirement, Bolin decided to take up the art discipline that had evaded him before. He began to take digital photos.
Eventually, his photography developed from a therapeutic pastime into a vocation. At the ripe age of 66, Bolin had his first exhibition as a photographer.