.
The Reclamation of Silver Series
images are created from discarded silver gelatin prints, reinterpreted digitally and then printed on panels of translucent
silk. The silk panels move gently in the gallery as viewers walk by, the fluid
motion underscoring the often fluid like imagery.
These images are an aesthetic
exploration of the remnants of my own production as a photographer working with wet processes. I am immensely curious about
the chemical interactions that occur within the wet darkroom and as a result I am always trying to find new methods to create
layers of imagery and texture that I can manipulate and merge with other imagery in the digital darkroom.
Half developed or fixed and discarded
prints are from my own darkroom as well as communal darkrooms. Most of the trash I’ve appropriated is completely abstract,
created through the unpredictable convergence of chemical stain, light and its placement in the trash can. Other times, distorted
relics from the original image peek through the chemical stain—the intended image of the photographer no longer recognizable.
I utilize the digital darkroom to translate and enlarge the sometimes small scraps into large paneled pieces that magnify
the textures, tonalities and the fortuitous incidents that led to this image. The
unique visual characteristics that emerge are then re-interpreted digitally until an often abstracted and serendipitous dreamscape
reveals itself—they become my own photographic palimpsests—layers of old imagery created into new.
