Some Assembly Required

This body of work comes from my desire to break out of the norm, abandon the usual boundaries, and create something new by combining multiple negatives in the darkroom. All images are lith images. None of these are toned but the coloration comes from the lith process itself. "Susan de Witt uses photography, not as many do to record and reproduce what the camera sees, but to produce very personal images from her imagination. Her photographic prints may be built up from more than one view of the same object or by combining different subject matter to produce a final result that is greater than its constituent parts. The surreal overtones in her images play both to the subconscious and to the imagination, telling us not what to see but inviting us to see in them what we find. Her choice of the lith printing process to produce her multiple images presents her both with real technical challenges due to the nature of the process and significant aesthetic advantages as the distinctive visual properties of the lith prints produced in this way further removes her imagery from the realism of conventional photographic reproduction." Tim Rudman Photographer, author and the world's leading authority on lith printing. My mentor . . . www.timrudman.com "Susan’s images are photo - graphic in the way that light leaves its mark upon the mind’s eye. They are, for me, reminiscent of those rarified graphic impressions I recall when thinking of portraits in the work of Leonard Baskin, the impressions of the deconstructed / reconstructed dolls from Hans Bellmer Die Puppe (1932) or the forensic aesthetics unearthed in a Frederick Sommer photograph. It is their densely graphic intensity that I am attracted to and surprised by. Susan’s photographic works are about marking with light and inviting the viewer to create something new from their life experiences. In this way, her dark images illuminate our imaginations." Christopher James Professor and Chair of Photography at The Art Institute of Boston @ Lesley University. 2009 www.christopherjames-studio.com