Good old Boltmzmann and his brain
"Boltmann's TV" Cliche Verre Technique - Camera-less - 4x5" B&W negative exposed to three hand crafted/altered plates.
One more for the road…
One last image from "Controlled Abstraction: Space and Time" This one won't actually be on the website. It has a nice feel to it but I found a different version to be more successful. Anywho, just about done with the new gallery for the website so I will be sharing that soon ... ish. Then I need to decide if I should start a shop on the website or not ... decisions ... decisions.
Unknown Galaxy - Cliche Verre Print - 4x5" negative exposure via fire (micro explosions) to a plate consisting of Carbon, alcohol, ink, steel, glue and film
The space in between…
Going through the "Space and Time" series again. Currently stuck on a new image I have been working on for a while, so I am going back and doing some "maintenance" of older work while I try to sort new work out in my head. I need to get the space and time work on the website but I have been holding out in hopes it could have the debut it deserves in a gallery. That was the original plan when I finished it a couple years ago but covid scrapped all that. The problem now is that all the galleries are shite, mainstream/popular galleries can't take the chance on new or interesting work cause they need the guaranteed sales to make ends meet (Not that they would anyways but thats a separate rant) and the smaller galleries are over priced and at that level ur basically paying for an arty piss up for all your friends and acquaintances, so whats the point?
No probably best to just get it up on the website and have one less thing on the to do list. Problem now is narrowing it down to a reasonable number to represent the series as a whole .....
Cliche Verre Print - 4x5" negative exposure via fire (micro explosions) to a plate consisting of Carbon, alcohol, ink, steel, glue and film.
Self as……B&W Version
So, here we have one of the Black and Whites of "Self portrait as Francis Deakin". Personally I am on the fence on which one I prefer, one of the curses of doing multiple versions, but how do you know which will be successful unless you try ALL the ideas .... right? What do you think?
Anyways like I said before the title is a play on names from the inspiration of the work. Francis is Francis Bacon and Deakin is John Deakin. I have always loved the imagery of Francis Bacon (sometimes not his colour choice) and he would only work from photographs. John Deakin who is a bit more obscure, was a friend of Bacon and part of the Soho art crowd at the time. He took a now famous portrait of Bacon for Vogue.
Self as…
And here we finally have it! one of the finale four images titled "Self portrait as Francis Deakin" as I said before the title is a play with names, anyone care to take a crack at where the title comes from?
4x5 colour negative (Fuji Pro 160S) directly exposed to three hand altered layered plates.
Here we go …..
Playing around with a few things, I wan't to add several of my techniques into one image. I also wan't to add more geometry and a sort of post image structure. What may not make sense in typing makes some sense in my brain .... here we go.
4x5" Black and White Negative (Fomapan 100) exposed to three constructed plates via direct exposure.
Back to black ….. and white
Switching back to black and white for a while, it's cheaper so I can do allot more without becoming very precious about each sheet of film.
"Extinction Is Coming" - 4x5" Black and White Negative (Fomapan) exposed to three constructed plates via micro explosion.
The Hand Magazine
Very happy to say that I will have work in Issue #40 of The Hand Magazine @thehandmagazine , even better that its a real life in print magazine. Will be interesting to see what they picked. You can check them out here https://thehandmagazine.net/
Hit or miss……
Sometimes you like it and sometimes you don't .... this one just feels a bit too busy and obvious at the moment. Would generally do another 10 versions of it, but im just about out of colour sheet film. 4x5" colour sheet film has become ridiculously expensive, actually all colour film has become way over priced. So may just go back to black and white for a while .... I like to switch it up anyways.
Cliche Verre print created from a 4x5" colour negative exposed directly to layered plates
Colour Cliche Verre
Here we have my latest work using the technique Cliche Verre in colour. Created from hand altering plates then exposing them directly onto 4x5" colour film, in this case Kodak Ektar 100.
In The Depths - Colour Cliche Verre, 4 plates exposed directly onto 4x5" colour film.
Just another manic …. saturday?
Currently working on this image, it was originally taken around 2006/07. An appropriate image as I hate this time of year and I am pretty sick of the constant rain atm.
Canon Eos 3 - 35mm Fuji Acros 100
Just a shadow of a ghost …..
Some days you feel like a shadow in the fog. This one is from around 2004, thick fog at second beach in Newport R.I. These days I do a lot of layering of images, three to four layers at times. This older image combined with new should work well, I think.
35mm canon EOS-3 - Fuji Neopan 400
A curious place……
Here is an old favourite from around 2006/2007. It was taken in the boiler room of an abandoned cinema in New Bedford M.A. I knew someone that owned a business connected to it so I could come and go as I wanted. Besides being a fairly creepy place, the boiler itself seemed much older than everything around it. Like the building had been built around it, instead of the other way around. It was was crumbling and seemed to list to one side like it was sinking into the floor. The pipes wen't in all directions that seemed to make little sense to anyone but whoever it was that kept connecting new lines.
I remember I was working with adding figures into abandoned spaces trying to add a more human connection to these derelict places. However I didn't wan't straight up models present, nor did I wan't ghostly shadows. So I was using direct harsh lighting sources. I would bring this old shop light that used a 500 watt bulb. It would leave the shape and contours of the figure but wash out most of the identifiable features. The first work I did with this print was using liquid light on an a2 sheet of cold press water colour paper, then used black india ink to work in the details and outlines. It was a great print, unfortunately something was contaminated in the processing and after a few years it decayed to just a brown mess. The washed out figure and white spaces will work out for an idea I have now though.
35mm - Fuji Acros 100
Lost highway ….
I think this one is from around 2005, taken on a road by second beach in Newport R.I on a foggy night, using my cars headlights to light the shot.
It seems distinctly American to me with the long, wide road and power/phone lines over head, but it could be anywhere really.
Whenever I am looking at an image I often start to wonder into thoughts of movies, music and books. For this one the first thing to pop into my head was the opening scene to Lynch's "Lost Highway" which I don't think I had seen yet in 2005, a quote from Mad Max: The Road Warrior "With a roar of an engine, he lost everything", White Zombies track "Thunder Kiss 65" and just now the book Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers .... none of these things have much in common really, except they have roads. Just an interesting example of how my brain works I suppose....
Back in the day……
So I have been going through some old negatives that haven't seen the light of day for the better part of 15-18 years, just looking for something that could use a bit of new life twisted into it From a time when I was just taking pictures of everything I could. Film was cheap and I had loads I wanted to do, so I used to burn through it. I have a vague recollection of when I took this one, but whose eye it is totally escapes me. I do remember always liking the reflection of the ring flash though . Now the question is, what can I do with it now?
35mm Kodak 400TMY - 2004/2005?
Memory Dump…
Well that’s school done till next year! Gives me almost a month to have an art land memory dump, lets see if that turns out anything interesting.
"The Flawed System" - Cliche Verre- 4x5" B&W negative exposed via fire (micro explosions) to a plate consisting of Carbon, alcohol, ink, steel, glue and film
Just keep it simple…
Currently going through some writing to finalise the statement for the "Time and Space" project. I generally avoid saying Artist Statement outside of formalities if I can. The idea of the "artist statement" is fine if you keep it genuine. Give the viewer an explanation, a bit of background on what they are looking at. Unfortunately for the most part "Artist Statements" are an incoherent diatribe of art speak and confusion that not even the writer really understands, but does know that their final year Uni professor would have loved it, and so it must be good. A way to make the lifeless, boring images of your work come to life! Sorry mate you can't go on about the meaning of the cosmos and then present the visual of a ruler in a dusty corner .......
Anyways, here is an image that may end up in the series.
"Can the Void Burn?" - Cliche Verre- 4x5" B&W negative exposed via fire (micro explosions) to a plate consisting of Carbon, alcohol, ink, steel, glue and film
Too Cold too cold!
So I was thinking about doing some work in the darkroom but it is absolutely FREEZING in there right now, and having the heater and hot water running for hours will cost a small fortune!
So i't a good time to go through the "Space and Time" series and start to get it organised, think of wanky titles etc to put up on the website.
"Galaxy in Semblance" Cliche Verre - 4x5" B&W negative exposed via fire (micro explosions) to a plate consisting of Carbon, alcohol, ink, steel, glue, engraving and film
Never enough time…
Sadly I haven't been able to create much new work over the last months as I have been neck deep in studying Mechanical Engineering at uni. Definitely a good reminder of how my sanity requires my creativity. Just a two more finals and I will have some spare time to crank out a few ideas.
In the meantime here is a print created from a solarised 4x5" b&w negative.
Cliche Verre - 4x5" B&W negative exposed via fire (micro explosions) to a plate consisting of Carbon, alcohol, ink, steel, glue, engraving and film and then solarised.