Doug and Mike Starn
Doug Starn and Mike Starn “address issues such as beauty and impermanence” through the materiality of non-traditional modes of the medium to create immense installations of bespoke photographic works on paper. Their work illuminates an expanded investigation of how installation art cultivates interactivity and shared experience while debasing photography’s emphasis on the single image and the constraints held within the frame (Higgins 2013, 86). According to the brothers, “Photography isn’t just an image, any more than a painting is just paint. The print is an object, and this object becomes the embodiment of a concept” (ibid).
To create the Attracted to Light series, the brothers first captured images of moths using a custom macro lens developed and constructed by the brothers to achieve incredible detail of the tiny insects. Next, exposures on bespoke mulberry paper, hand-painted with photographic silver emulsion – the minute flakes of the light-sensitive materials washing away to “[mimic] the moths’ delicate and tattered wings, while the soft paper echoes their velvety texture” (Lehmann Maupin 2014). According to Higgins (2013, 86), Doug Starn and Mike Starn use photography to explore how the "microcosm informs the macrocosm".
Figure 1. Doug and Mike Starn, Attracted to Light 1, 2000–2003, sulfur-toned and tea-stained silver print on Thai mulberry paper, 3048x6401mm
Figure 2. Doug and Mike Starn, Attracted to Light 2 (Triple), 2000, sulfur toned silver prints hand-coated on Thai mulberry paper, 1600x1600mm
Bibliography
“Attracted to Light (H).” n.d. Philadelphia Museum of Art. Accessed August 21, 2022. https://philamuseum.org/collection/object/93670.
“Mike & Doug Starn.” n.d. Wetterling Gallery. Accessed August 21, 2022. https://www.wetterlinggallery.com/artists/mike-doug-starn.
Higgins, Jackie. 2013. Why It Does Not Have To Be In Focus. London: Thames & Hudson.
Starn, Doug, and Mike Starn. 2000. Attracted to Light 2 (Triple). Image. https://www.mandatory.com/living/1003235-like-moth-flame-drawn-art-mike-doug-starn.
Starn, Doug and Mike Starn. 2000-2003. Attracted to Light. Image. https://www.lehmannmaupin.com/ch/zhan-lan/doug-mike-starn.