PHOTOGRAPHS
Back Dirt series, 2018- ongoing
Limited edition photographs
“Ancient Attitude” 2019. Installation view at Triangle Arts Association, 2019
About: In archeological terminology, the term “back dirt” refers to the excavated, discarded material (sediment, dirt) from a site that has generally been sifted for artifacts and is presumed to be of no further archaeological significance.
A few years ago I found a stack of pages from an old French archeology book, with many objects meticulously cut out of them by an unknown person. I have been rearranging and photographing these pages ever since, each time assembling a new combination of layered pages to create a new image.
In addition to photography I also make porcelain sculptures, and the images in these pages are part of the visual research and inspiration for my sculpture, linking the two practices.
I print my photographs much larger than the original pages, revealing the materiality of the cut and torn paper. They appear to be in black-and-white or sepia tones at first glance, but a longer look reveals the subtleties of the slightly yellowing paper or the bluish shadows the pages cast on one another.
“Missing Person”, installation view at Crush Curatorial gallery, NYC, 2018
“Containment sold as protection” 2020, edition of 3, 63" x 44", Pigment print on archival satin paper
“Shards”, 2018, BOMB Magazine end-page commission
“Missing Person”, 2018, edition of 5. Pigment print on archival satin paper, 30” x 18
Also available in 66" x 44", edition of 3
"Holes with Shadows", 2020, edition of 5. 27" x 19". Archival inkjet print on satin paper
Installation view at "Science Fictions", a two-person show with Brittany Nelson, curated by Nicole Kaack at Crush Curatorial gallery, NY, NY, 2018:
“Treasures of the Bible Lands”, 2018- ongoing
Limited edition photographs
“Treasure 03”, 2019, edition of 5. 24 x 18 inches. Archival inkjet print on satin paper, framed.
About: On a 2018 trip to Israel, in a used book store, I found “Treasures of the Bible Lands”, a catalogue for a 1987 exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The exhibition showed artifacts found in and around what we now call Israel, Palestine, and their neighboring countries. The catalogue featured striking photographic documentation of the artifacts of the myriad civilizations that lived in the Middle East in ancient times. Since acquiring the catalogue, I have been physically and conceptually mining it to produce a new body of work: photographs of the book’s pages, cut up and layered. By making holes in the photos, I physically edited out the objects, leaving only negative spaces and the shadows that they had cast on their lurid backgrounds. These ravaged pages became fuel for images that call to mind the holes in the ground after an archeological expedition has departed; the negative space left behind by something that has been taken away.
“Treasure 07”, 2019, edition of 5. 24 x 18 inches. Archival inkjet print on satin paper
“Treasure 09”, 2019, edition of 5. 24 x 18 inches. Archival inkjet print on satin paper
“Treasure 09”, 2019, edition of 5. 24 x 18 inches. Archival inkjet print on satin paper