Curtain 2011

The work in Curtain are photograms - produced by using a photographic process that bypasses the use the camera to instead record the shape and shadow of objects placed directly on light sensitive paper. Created for my thesis exhibition, this work stretched common expectations related to the materials and conventions of photography - such as associations with mechanics, perspective, and reproduction. I found that the hands-on physicality of the photogram process created an ambiguity, between being a reference and the concrete fact of making. In some works, I alluded to something in the world - in this case a curtain or a veil - by arranging theater lighting gels to emphasize the physical qualities of a curtain, such as lightness, translucency, and curvature. This allusion allowed me to explore the gap between the depiction of a curtain and the index of an arrangement of material that is evocative of a curtain.