Transformations

Gel plate image transfer

Things are not always as we see them. Every image has layers – surface, underneath-background, and invisible.  Gel plate image transfers allow us to rearrange these layers into something utterly unexpected.  The invisible emerges, secrets of the image revealed.  A transformation.

We do not fully control this transformation – we are just enabling it to happen. Small interventions –  choice of image,  background layer, light finger touch, small corrections, a quick choice of background, a highlight, imprints – everything has to happen pretty fast – no time for conscious compositions.  Blurs and ‘splotches’ are random, annoying, sometimes a dramatic emphasis, sometimes a void that needs to be covered or incorporated into the image intuitively.  What a process!

What emerges is a new face of the image – open for interpretation, emotionally charged. Sometimes, I think, the most artistic intervention of all is ‘reading’ the stories that emerge from a series of these images – they come together, unintended, by an incomprehensible attraction.  They are intuitive, ambiguous, and impactful.

Stories that will inhabit a ‘hollow mind’ of our big installation project, bringing it to life.  Visceral and experiential.  Here are some images that emerged from our preparatory workshop for BrainArt 2023. Watch them as they come together to enliven and electrify the hollow brain in its search for true identity (visit the full Brain Art project under the ‘Projects’ menu).