Non Returning Status

George Washington Rogers, IV

“Karma is more real than anything else in the world, Cause & Effect.”
Jah- T

I’m at this mega department store waiting in line for the cashier and notice that there are hundreds of people enclosed around me waiting in line as well. Patiently. I think about the lives behind each set of eyes I stare into. People watching/reading. It gives me insight into who each stranger is and what he or she is about. I note that out of all the people I read I realize that each individual is his/her own favorite person. Meaning that everything anyone ever does is to simple serve thyself.

This work is my exit.

I’m all about experiencing and documenting the authentic experience.

Untainted by false pretenses and sponsorship bias.

My work is my art and my art is my life. There are no coffee breaks, no paycheck, no insurance, and no security. And that’s the way it has to be to keep it as real and authentic as possible. Your schedule changes on a whim, whether it’s going to Jamaica for a touring gig or covering a music festival that was a late booking.

Everything that I have has gone into this work. No grants, no scholarships, no handouts. I’ve produced this work solely with my own means to assure the quality and authenticity of the subject matter. I believe in the message, the music, and most importantly the people that I have documented and become family with.

The experience, at the cost of all my savings, is the most valuable thing I have ever received.
Photographs act as a memory saver. I am the memory man. Creating a catalog, documenting treasure and being metamorphosed physically, mentally, and spiritually by letting go of all pretenses and becoming one with the moment.

The qualitative research for my work has taken over four years of ethnographic acquired data living and touring with the Natti Love Joys as well as studying and participating in Buddhist, Rastafarian, and Voodoo practices and rituals that has historical origins spanning over two millennia. This immersion let me gain a deep insight into the souls of my fellow artists. Experiencing the spectrum of emotions ranging from birth and death, weddings and engagements, as well as personal Successes and failures.

Intuition and understanding are my two most valuable tools in exploration of reality. I am creating the image of their counterculture. My photographs act as a visual travel diary.

Non Returning Status is about keeping a non conceptual frame of mind and opening up to reality and seeing the world as it is, free of confusion and bias. Accepting that everything is impermanent and always changing and that to exist is to suffer. Non Returning Status is my meditation to the testament of being aware of the present and more wholeheartedly engaged with life and its wonder and less distracted and dissipated.

- George Washington Rogers, IV

Rogers is a graduate from The University of Tennessee with a dual Masters in International Business and Converging Media. His work deals with looking for the authentic experience in everyday reality through the use of audio, video and photography. He is also a published author, whose works include 4 Walls (2007), Non Returning Status (2008) and Eyes of the World (2009). Rogers has also produced and directed a number of award-winning films that include Atrophy (2003), Transmissions (2004), 4 Walls (2007), and Eyes of the World (2009).

Please visit George’s official website at www.WashingtonIV.com