LATENT DEPICTIONS / 2019

My most recent project, Latent Depictions uses black glass, a traditional background of commercial still life photographers, as a springboard to explore painting and photographic pictorialism. Rather than photographing a three-dimensional object or product on the glass I photographed the reflective black glass surface itself attempting to challenge conventional perspectives of what still life subject matter is. In an effort to make the work not just by me but an extension of my physical self I’ve employed the techniques of painting by applying the oil from my fingers, and sometimes saliva, to the glass. I use my hands, fingers, and sometimes rubber spatulas as brushes to work the surface of the black glass creating abstract shapes and patterns. Once completed the transparent images on the glass are very difficult to see and have a transient lifespan. Only through the alchemy of applying the basic tools of photography do the paintings actually appear in the glass. Employing strategically placed lighting, a minimal focus, and reflected colors of objects outside our field of view produces depictions of something which never can be seen by looking at the worked glass. The result is a synthesis, a functional partnership of painting and the mechanical lens of photography where neither could exist without the other.