Mike Rayburn is the Scott County Art League Featured Artist for October. You can visit the Chamber of Commerce this month to see his excellent pictures from China.
Mike presently lives in Morehead, Kentucky, where he attended Morehead State University and studied photography. He enjoys photographing many subjects, including landscapes and horses, but people are his favorite. He has spent almost a year in China during two trips there since spring of 2000, traveling and photographing the scenery and the daily life of China’s people, as well as teaching English to children and adults. There is quite a similarity between life in China and eastern Kentucky— China seems like the America of forty years ago in many ways. This fascination with its exotic and old-fashioned life has led Mike to start making plans to move to China in the future, to be both a teacher and photographer. He hopes to use his pictures to show Americans not only the beauty of China and its people, but to demonstrate the universal nature of humanity, regardless of the nature of our political systems. Carrying a camera allows Mike to “connect” with many people, regardless of the differences in lifestyle or language. He hopes that those who view his photographs will experience some of the feelings he felt when taking them.
Almost all of Mike’s photos are taken with old-fashioned manual 35mm cameras; a few came from 120 roll film— there are no digital images or digitally-enhanced images. Mike’s black and white images are printed by hand in the darkroom, and he does his own matting and framing. While nothing compares to the excitement of traveling and photographing people, the magic of bringing images to life in the darkroom is a rewarding part of the photographic process.
Mike is an active member of the Lexington Art League, the Scott County Art League, and the Cave Run Arts Association. He has been a guest lecturer in art classes at Morehead State University and the Beijing Film Academy in Beijing, China. He has exhibited work in Morehead, Lexington, Ashland, and Mount Sterling, Kentucky, and Charleston, W. Virginia. His work was included in Appalshop’s touring exhibit, “Images from the Mountains, 2004”, which traveled to galleries throughout Kentucky and W.Virginia. His work is on display in the Upstairs Gallery in Ashland and the Heritage Art Center in Lexington, Kentucky, as well as in private collections in the United States, China, and Australia.
