deankessmann

Test Strips

silver gelatin photograms, 8 x 10 inches, 2011
edition 1/1
silver gelatin photograms, 8 x 10 inches, 2011
edition 1/1

Read a short description of this project

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Test Strips

Test Strips continues what has become an ongoing exploration of the materiality of paper. Past and subsequent projects have transformed various kinds of commercially manufactured, mass-produced paper products—pages from the Bible, entire art magazines as well as the front and back covers, and blank sheets of white and colored, letter-size paper. To create the images in Test Strips, my focus turned to standard sheets of 8 x 10 inch silver gelatin photographic paper. This shift back to conventional photographic materials after a decade of editing images on computer screens enabled me to more directly reference the medium that most fully defines my practice as an artist—photography. Working exclusively with light, light-sensitized paper, and photochemical processes to create Test Strips renewed my excitement about the essential characteristics, inherent materiality, and ephemeral nature of photography. To produce these prints, I played with light and shadow on the surface of seemingly blank sheets of paper, which were then chemically transformed into bands of silver. Each unique photogram has eleven bands of tones ranging from pure white to pure black. The tones are the same from print to print; however, the widths vary from one to the next. In a fundamental way, this work reflects upon the positive and negative relationships inherent in the medium of photography. Yet, the clearly defined steps between the tones resist the analogue nature of continuous tone silver gelatin paper; oddly enough, the gradients are reduced to a more stair-stepped, digital form of representation. The prints in this series, individually and collectively, function as records of actions performed with the absence and abundance of light, as well as testaments to the passage of time.