The merging of contemporary and archaic technology, science and an element of chance inform my latest work. Through digital imaging, I am exploring the abstract pictorial effects of chemistry in the 19th century wet plate collodion photographic process, which I use to make glass plate negatives, ambrotypes and tintypes. My work is an investigation of the materials of the medium.
Although the use of chemicals in wet plate requires precision, the visual results are not always predictable and may be enhanced by the intentional or unintentional introduction of contaminant particles. Abstract images form as a result of organic reactions on the surfaces of glass and metal plates that I use and may, but need not, involve the mediation of a camera.
The abstractions offer micro and macrocosmic interpretive possibilities. They might be seen as trace evidence of molecular transference and fractal patterns in nature. They might also suggest satellite images of the Earth in the aftermath of drastic climate change, or perhaps the surface details of other planets, whose geology and evolution are similar to our own.
Tintype Abstraction #3
