RESPITE
Cognitive neuroscientist Dr Antonio Damasio (2019, 3) states that "Feelings have not been given the credit they deserve as motives, monitors, and negotiators of human cultural endeavours". Damasio underscores that "what the body feels" and what the "mind thinks" are not only equally significant but they are also inseparably "intertwined" (Banville 2018).
The views of Damasio provide a methodological departure point for my Studio 2 project, Respite (Figure XX), to cultivate the "direct, unmediated, sensory experience of creation … as a valuable and meaningful part of the art making process" (Persinger 2014, 13) made manifest in the materiality of the darkroom.
Informed Doug Starn and Mike Starn's artwork Attracted to Light 1 (2000-2003),[1] Respite is a multi-panel unique gelatin wall installation depicting a single exposure of a succulent across the expanse of a mosaic-type grid measuring 120 x 190cm comprising fifteen hand-torn tiles of gelatin silver paper arranged evenly and spaced slightly apart from the other – five across and three down – form a rectangle. Small nails and push pins secure the top left and right corners of each sheet to the wall, allowing them to curl and curve naturally at the bottom corners.
To make the work, I hand-tore the fifteen tiles from a 127cm x 30 metre roll of gelatin silver paper. The individual pieces were then arranged in a grid on the darkroom wall (Figure XX). A conventional film-based capture of a succulent was then exposed across the expanse of mosaic-like arrangement of the light-sensitive paper.
My lack of experience applying radical darkroom processes and working with large sheets of hand-torn paper presented several problems. For instance, I realised that my ad hoc home darkroom was too small to develop the prints. Recalling the radical darkroom practices of Sigmar Polke, I found a packet of craft sponges in the vanity cupboard and set up my enlarger table as a workbench. I then hand-brushed the individual sheets using craft sponges and kitchen cloths to develop the prints. The deckle-edge hand-torn paper, painterly gestures and my embracing of the dust and scratches in the negative further instilled a sense of humanity in the artwork (Figure XX).
The genesis of negative (Figure XX) – from being picked apart in the darkroom and reimagined in a grid – epitomises the Zen aesthetic principle of honouring the broken with beauty transformed. Each tile is an abstract image within the image that forms the greater whole as a reflection of myself. The in-between spaces of the mosaic-type installation suggest that "emptiness can … create something [and] give space to new thoughts, new creations" (Verhetsel et al. 2013, 31).
The titling of the work speaks to the sense of calm I experience when I am in the darkroom, a place where everyday stresses melt away, where I can lean into my hopes, fears and vulnerabilities to freely express myself.
The making of Respite marked a significant turning point in the development of my practice. Through accident, trial and error, I realised that deconstructing and reconstructing the material print broke through the boundaries of my work from having been confined within a two-dimensional plane.
This was achieved by experimenting with my methods of production through the materiality of the darkroom, which, without the use of digital processing, resulted in the creation of a hand-made work of art that comes closer to the visual aesthetics and scale I envisaged.
In contrast to my work in Studio 1, I was able to break down boundaries held within the two-dimensional plain to challenge notions of what defines the photographic image. I achieved my goal of creating hand-made works of art without the use of any digital processing. This in turn, marked the trajectory for my future work aims to "[demonstrate] the central role of the lived body in shaping experience" (Embree 1997, 104).