On the Nature of Things- the complete suite (so far)

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 1^st 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