r chorneau is an american painter and photographer born in los angeles in1952. self taught and formed as much by labor as art schools, working in boat yards, machine shops, and commercial fishing before devoting himself fully to painting and photography. his work moves between modernist street photography and deeply physical painting, shaped by shadow weather solitude and the dignity of ordinary life. over the last decade he produced thousands of photographs walking the streets of savannah and portland, building books that read as one long human document broken into fragments. living and working in portland with the painter, ruth hunter, he continues to make art outside fashion, careerism, and institutional permission, guided instead by endurance observation and the necessity of seeing.