I figure the place to get creative and do something unique is with your content, not the user-interface. To gain viewers you need to engage them rapidly and confusing them with the interface detracts them from looking at the images themselves.
Think of a Western book model. Once you deviate from the Left-hand binding, Left-to-Right, Top-to-Bottom reading method of laying it out, the book design becomes the most important thing to a new reader. That's great for the designer but not so wonderful for your content.
To me, the artist's statement is the art work here, the pictures not so much. So it really could just be a statement and a scroll of static pictures, you could do it all on Tumbler template and reach 10000x more people.
I'm not in love with the artist's statement myself, I just see that is where you put your efforts.
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