Fire & Ice - working Statement

Before covid, I specialized in what I refer to as gelatin silver "spiritual landscapes," primarily made via true infrared film. I began making experimental photograms in June 2020, due to having an unfinished darkroom at the time of the shutdown. This was what I consider to be my first foray into experimental work, and making this alt process work (going on 4 new bodies of work now) was not only what got me through nearly 2 years of pretty consistent isolation, as well as over 3 years of printing withdrawal (the result of losing my prior darkroom to NYC rent hikes in 2017), but also seemed to change me as artist - almost overnight.

By the end of 2020, I had completed my first 2 bodies of cameraless work; early in 2021, my "Metamorphosis" (series) began to take shape, and to my very happy surprise, the awards started coming in (and I also began teaching some of my processes). This series is presently ongoing.

Fire & Ice was born in March 2022. This sister series (to Metamorphosis) was inspired by my first snow and ice photograms (printed the month prior), as well as some new (self-created) processes with ice and sand - and is literally made with fire and/or ice. Further, this new work marks my transition from experimental photograms to alt process landscapes, as I bring more and more elements of nature (as well as some not so natural elements) into the darkroom. [While it is still in the early stages, this series is already so much more physical in nature than my prior bodies of work, that I suspect it will eventually be the work that gets me back into the printmaking studio; some of my new processes were actually inspired by intaglio processes but tweaked for gelatin silver/fiber paper.]

My newest processes are made with my own creations of glitter-ice, as well as a sparkly sludge composed of wet and/or dry sand mixed with glitter, ice, sand, and flowers). I also make ice-rubbings with both clear and my own concoctions of glitter-ice. [The processes aren’t always kind to the paper, so there are some interesting marks left behind.]

All of my images are essentially (subconscious) self-portraits (or “natural equivalents”), which reveal themselves during my printing process; However, in the case of my photograms, the titles correspond to what I see in the images. 

All of my photograms are exposed with alternative light sources, including sparklers, a firework led, dripping candles, and more. Some of these light sources are also rigged for contrast.

[This series may eventually include poetry with select images; the poetry has to come to me organically, but is actually part of my printing process, and is something I also included with select images from the prior series.]