Language Acquisition: Gestures (2015 – present)

 

Facing an increasingly-digitized existence where AI permeates nearly every aspect of our lives, my Gestures series celebrates physical contact, attention to the present moment, and collaboration with the corporeal environment. I create these prints with the cameraless photographic process known as the chemigram, in which silver gelatin paper is processed with traditional photo chemistry in full light. The use of substances known as resists allow me to create marks directly on the photo paper, amplifying the material nature of the process. Each print is a unique document of a moment in time that is influenced by seasonal variables such as light and temperature, as well as by my own mental state as reflected in the intuitive marks that I draw onto the paper.

I am attracted to photography for the wonder of its light-sensitivity, as I find the concept of wonder to be in short supply in my information-flooded American existence. I consider societal issues that have impacted the development of our youngest generations – their struggles with motor skills, political legislation that dismantles critical thinking in education, obsession with black-and-white answers rather than the process of investigating a question. Exploring the innate qualities of photographic paper when freed from the expectations of a lens-based image is my personal antidote to these physical and intellectual challenges. The chemigram process itself, with its endless variables and lack of fully-controlled outcomes, celebrates the rare sense of mystery and awe that our constantly digitally-connected world robs from us, fueling an epidemic of anxiety.