Elemental Forms: Landscapes

'Elemental Forms: Landscapes' consists of experimental tintype photograms that explore how observing Nature informs contemplation, perception, and identity. The series is anchored in a deep connection to the landscape and my fascination with the photo-based object. I am interested in recording an ineffable presence in the place by using a pared down visual vocabulary created with light, photo chemistry, cut paper, and paint brushes. Disorienting compositions, evidence of the hand, and process artifacts serve to undermine illusionistic references to physical locales while gesturing toward the hidden, the immaterial, the unphotographable. I often incorporate shapes and artifacts that allude to the human footprint in the landscape (e.g., city lights, colossal cargo ships scattered across the San Francisco Bay, polluted air, global warming-induced forest fires, etc.), to explore how ‘progress’ and its externalities relates to the notions of immanence (the idea that the divine is manifested in the material world) and beauty (Keats’ concept of beauty as truth; beauty in all things).