Untitled

This group of photographs were made using negatives that belonged to my father. He was a serious amateur photographer who began photographing in the late 1940s and continued until his death in 1994. A few years after his death my mother gave me a box full of his black-and-white negatives.

As an artist it is impossible to receive a box full of old black-and-white negatives and not have an immediate urge to use them. Each negative strip was housed inside an old glassine negative sleeve yellowed from age. The way the negatives appeared when viewed through the grainy, wrinkled and yellowed glassine envelopes greatly influenced my choices in creating the final prints.

Each photograph in the series is composed of six sections. Although I exposed all the sections simultaneously I processed them separately because I wanted to chemically manipulate each section individually. This chemical manipulation creates the first of three formal layers in each finished print. The distressed surface of the paper forms the second layer. The cracked emulsion, deep creases and wrinkles create a sense of decay and imply years of physical handling. At the heart of the photograph is the third layer, the original photographic image. This layer unifies the formal chaos of the other two layers. The chemical and physical manipulation combine with and obscure the original photographic image creating something new. Much like new experiences combine with old experiences to create memories.

Although these images are specific to my father’s memories, through our collaboration they become a trigger for the collective memory.