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Gallery I "Drought" 4 x 5" contact prints etched and painted with metallic powders
Drought — [usu. with adj. ] figurative a prolonged absence of something, an archaic thirst
Gallery II "Erie" Beaches 6 x 6" Diana* color photographs.
*The Diana camera is a plastic camera first introduced in the early 1960'. It has a three option focusing ring, three aperture settings, helical zone focus and take 120mm roll film. The Diana camera is predisposed to light leaks, a situation often remedied by sealing the seams with light proof tape after loading the film. The plastic lens is imprecise and a signature of sorts for each individual camera as each lens has its own characteristic aberrations. The lens produces an image circle that only marginally covers the diagonal of a film frame. This marginal coverage field produces images with often pronounced vignetting. The poor quality of the plastic lens results in generally odd color rendition, chromatic aberration, and blurred images.
I find the image quality draws me to this camera, the "atmospheric thickness", the luminous area between light and dark, and the unexpected light leaks. In my work I am often grasping at moments, fleeting, not definable. Clarity is blocked by obstruction. Blocked by objects in the frame, the frame itself, light and dark, and with the Diana the distortion created by the lens.
Summary of artwork and inspirations
“The ideal image is one where the meaning must be unlocked, the interpretation determined by the psychic of the viewer." Arron Siskind
To use the way of seeing particular to the camera allows us to experience a vision separate from standard human perception, an equation of light, space, and time. At its most excellent, a photograph, like music or poetry can create a language richer and more profound than simple words.
Beneath consciousness and the subconscious lies darkness. I describe this place as an abyss. This void is not vacant but infinite. A place filled with secrets. In this place I sense the phantoms or complexes of the psychic, shadowy outlines, obscure metaphors the ego has repressed to keep our psychics intact, too illusive for literal translation. In my work I attempt to image the sensed.
Abyss — any profound depth or void
“Cyanotypes” 32x40" printed on Reeves BFK rag paper
Sir John Herschel discovered the Cyanotype, meaning, “blue print”, from the Greek words meaning “dark blue impression” in 1842. Herschel called his discovery “positive photographic tracings”. For this process, paper is coated with a solution of salts of iron and potassium. When the paper dries the printing surface is lemon yellow. The salts if unaffected by light are soluble in water, if exposed to light they form insoluble ferric ferricyanide turning blue in color, also known as “Prussian blue”. The intensity of color can be controlled by exposure time, type of light, and time of year if exposure is by sunlight. “Solar printing” is the most effective method of exposure since the chemicals are very sensitive to ultraviolet rays. After exposure, the prints are washed in warm water to rinse out the unexposed chemicals leaving a blue image on white (paper color) ground. Toning solutions can be used as a wash or painted on to alter the color.
These prints are a reflection on the notion of "interiors and exteriors". The 32x40 inch negatives are composed of x-rays and contact printed on Reeves BFK rag paper.
“Plants” 8 X10" subjective color photograph
“Teeth” 4 x 5" collage contact prints painted with metallic powders
“Figments of the Imagination” 20 x 24" black and white photographs
A rustling of leaves
wind whispers through the trees
I turn quickly
As I spin around I catch movement
just a glimpse out of the corner of my eye
like a memory
I taste it
feel its strangeness
“Absurd” 8 x 10" digital collage
“This heart within me I can feel, and I judge that it exists. This world I can touch, and I likewise judge that it exists. There ends all my knowledge, and the rest is construction.”
Albert Camus.
With these as the basic certainties of the human condition, Camus argues that life has no absolute meaning. In spite of our need for unity, for absolutes, for a definite order and meaning to life, no such meaning exists. “The confrontation of the irrational, longing human heart and the indifferent universe” brings about Camus’s notion of the absurd.
The Still life, Reconstruction and Visual Record
I understand the still life to be a construction, a visual record and a reconstruction, a creation of the maker. The photograph is an ever-changing mirror that reflects different realities with each viewer.
I think of photography as an anthropological tool. As an anthropological tool, photography is a means to observe, collect, and record cultural information. The image is the site, the archeological dig. The elements within the frame are the artifacts. The viewer is presented with an assemblage of objects (artifacts) the meaning of which must be discovered. Meaning is best elusive eliciting sensation rather than rendering specifics.
“Still Life with Fish” 20 x 24" color photographs
“I realize that any analysis I could give in words, of my viewpoint, aims, way of work, must of necessity be incomplete, it is because of these very things that I can only fully explore through my work in other words that is why I am a photographer” Edward Weston
“Reconstructions” 15 x 20" black and white photographs
On the premise of Jung’s archetypes, I describe this work as reconstructions. I define reconstructions as the act of imaging, constructing compositions that reflect, at least in emotional tonality that which emerge from wherever one’s “intuitive or feeling” senses come from.
"Reconstructions” speak of the need to understand and restructure, thereby exerting control over our environment. Yet all things are flux, of decay thereby being reclaimed by nature. The density and texture within the frame speak of intricacy, entanglement, and interdependence. They are about change, cycles, and transformations.
“Relics of Psychic Events” 20 x 24" color photographs
Between the conscious and the subconscious lies darkness;
a void, not empty but infinite.
This inter space is filled with secrets.
The atmosphere is thick and seductive.
In its density, I sense phantoms;
their shadowy outlines and obscure metaphors
too illusive for words.
These images, or metaphorical relics, are constructions in the real sense, and metaphorically representations of the unconscious. Throughout the work there is a reversal between substantiality and void, in the representation of body or object and shadow. This work is about integration, about coming to terms with the shadows.