New photograms and constructed negatives by Farrah Karapetian celebrate photographic prints as a physical art form. She doesn’t use a camera, but instead relies on light-sensitive photo paper, chemicals, and objects, to bend or interrupt light on its way to the paper where they combine to create singular images that have no grain and look like luscious liquid color, three dimensional, and somewhat abstract visions while retaining an emotional connection to the real.

By naming the images, and by naming a series (in this case, “Relief”), she directs the power of language to infuse the images with the psychological freight of topics trending in the media and mass consciousness (refugees) while at the same time calling to mind the fundamental nature of sculptural art.

For example, an image made with a large piece of melting ice and diffused light can call to mind a life preserver of a refugee tossed about in a churning sea of uncertainty. Or, the viewer could simply appreciate the abstract explosion of color, volume and form on its own — beauty in its own right.

— Jim Casper