Paul Jaffe, who started his career as a dentist many years ago in Westchester County, New York, began experimenting with new digital technologies, including Adobe Photoshop, after he retired to Tucson in the 1990s. By using tools provided by the software, Jaffe began to experiment with transforming original source images, such as family photographs, famous paintings and his own digital photos from exotic places. The results were an inspiring revelation that opened up new ways of exploring traditional artistic techniques, from collage and assemblage, to more abstract imagery.

In this process, Paul Jaffe discovered himself as an artist. Always a lover of life and of learning, and engaged in studies across a wide variety of disciplines, he continued his education through university courses and was inspired by the creative leaps these new ways of approaching the human condition made possible to him as a self-taught artist.

Jaffe creates multiple variations that appear as his series of prints, creating similarity without sameness. He has no expectations for his imagery, rather he discovers patterns, relocates them, doubles them, flattens them, stretches and crunches them until they virtually explode with color and multiple forms. This manipulative process often results in dense multi-layered surfaces that reveal complex mutated structures. Such images are almost always unintentional and have a fortuitous and decorative beauty.

The images are often fractal-like, even organic, and yet, ironically, they are based on regular mathematical algorithms. The elegance of mathematics is thus revealed in the poetic sensitivity of his symmetrical images.

Jaffe's great discovery, through the computer, is that creative potential abounds if you open yourself to it. As he puts it: "Do not be afraid to explore, particularly in uncharted places. You will discover yourself in the process."

Paul Jaffe continues to push the envelope through his explorations of the creative process. Along with two-dimensional works he is also creating installations and applying his forms to three-dimensional structures. We are fortunate that through this website Jaffe shares his artistic process and a sampling of his work with the public.

Paul Eli Ivey, Ph.D
Associate Professor Art History
University of Arizona