Origins

I’ve called this series “origins” for two reasons. First, the images return to the beginning of photographic printing, Anna Atkins’ botanical cyanotypes. My admittedly archaic approach relies as much on darkroom printing as it does upon the mechanical recording of an external referent. Necessarily, then, I engage in dialogue with a number of foundational figures, including the photographic engineer, William Henry Fox Talbot, the chemist John Herschel, and the artist-scientist, Anna Atkins. Yet “origins” also evokes thematic content. These are photograms of the beginning of time, recordings of the Big Bang. While their production did nothing to salve my ontological alienation, they left an impression: I cannot imagine a creator-deity, but I’ve come to believe in the force of God’s Hammer.  

August 2024