 |
| Abductor Pollicis, 2012 23"x30" inkjet print from Wet Collodion negative |
|
|
The words text
and texture share a common
latin root- TEXO- to weave; to braid
together; to construct with elaborate care.
 |
| SYN. see LIE, 2012 22" x 30" inkjet print from Wet Collodion negative |
This surprising, yet intuitively clear bond of
meaning, serves as the central metaphor for this suite of photographs. Language
and sensation- the textual and the textural- are processes of pattern
perception. Meanings are woven from words just as lived experience is
interlaced with bodily feeling. To me, the hand-made, physical photographic
image is the ideal way to express how concepts have a tactile presence because they are woven, because they are stitched together from what Barthes
calls a “tissue of signs.”
 |
| the Catholic, 2012 22" x 30" Inkjet print from Wet Collodion negative |
The title, On the
Nature of Things, is derived from an epic philosophical poem written in the 1st
century BC by the Roman writer Titus Lucretius Carus, as an attempt to dispel
superstitious beliefs in the supernatural and the consequent fears of death, by
articulating a philosophy of the natural world then known as Atomism. Over 2000 years ago, this philosophy
uncannily presaged much of the work of contemporary scientists working in the
fields of quantum physics.
 |
| Atomism, 2012 22"x 30" inkjet print from Wet Collodion negative |
|
|
The
work was controversial when it was first written, more so when it was re-found
and translated during the Renaissance, and it stands today as an eloquent
testament to the dangers of dogmatic fundamentalism.
 |
| Egyptians Jerusalem, 2012 22"x30" inkjet print from Wet Collodion negative |
|
With this work, I
am making a statement about the beauty of mutable meanings. Just as our minds and bodies are
composed of atoms that were recently (and will soon be again) elsewhere in the
universe, our concepts and thoughts will spread, evolve, and recombine in an
infinitely complex, woven pattern, with no pre-set goal or meaning.
 |
| Crease, 2012 22"x 30" inkjet print from Wet Collodion negative |
This is the central message of all
existentialist, post-structural, and post-modern thought. This idea brings anxiety to the mind of
a fundamentalist; it brings peace to mine.
 |
| Mare Tranquiliatus, 2012 22"x 30" inkjet print from Wet Collodion negative |
I work in an antiquated, hand-made photographic
process called Wet Plate Collodion, because I think it is uniquely suited to
expressing these ideas. Every
image made with this process is a balance of the orderly organization of
information through the glass lens of the camera, with the unpredictable and
unavoidable chemical and physical randomness in the plate that records the
image.
 |
| CYCL, 2012 22"x30" inkjet print from Wet Collodion negative |
|
By photographing
degraded reference texts, plaster molds, and other materials that record the
physical actions taken upon them, my goal is to make images of undeniable and
unashamed beauty, that speak of the deep connection between ideas and their
physical manifestation.
 |
| Ruminate, 2012 22"x30" Inkjet print from Wet Collodion negative |
|
|
 |
| Fascia, 2012 22"x30" inkjet print from Wet Collodion negative |
All images at 22" x 30" are in editions of 5, 11"x14" in edition of 10
