Contested Divisions, an exhibition curated by Geoff Delanoy, presents images made from the materials of photography and that employ mixed media to explore the medium’s indexical mode.
The artists in Contested Divisions share an interest in producing work that examines the relationship between subject and photographic process. The exhibition brings together artworks that employ a range of imaging strategies, and create resonance between subject and how that is represented photographically.
Todd Forsgren’s work explores vision and ways of seeing while exploring the physicality and malleability of the medium, referencing its tools, both digital and darkroom based. View of Fuji on Kodak on Fuji is a constructed image made of appropriated images of Mt. Fuji that references the parallels between mountains and a familiar iconic editing tool from Photoshop. Digitally made, the piece is output to Fuji paper, mounted and notched to mimic a sheet of film.
Elizabeth Crisman and Ding Ren use photography as a way of recording and describing parallel to other modes of representation. Crisman displays found objects that have been recast in stoneware, presenting both interpretations of the spaces she encounters. Ren’s rubbings of the cliffs and rocks record in a more physical manner their topography and are presented as part of the digital photograph.
Amy Finkelstein’s photographic series records the interaction of India ink, and backlit velum vis-a-vis the photographic process. These images capture a moment in the interaction of drawing media and substrate rendered permanent through photography.
Muriel Hasbun’s X post facto series uses appropriated x-rays as a metaphor for the trauma that war in her homeland of El Salvador inflicts on the body. Untethered from their original anatomical referents these x-rays become poetic record of a cultural history.
Works form Kyle Tata’s from the series Points of Tension pictures and abstracts studio photography tools and implements such as exposure guides and backdrop paper in homage to 20th century Modernism.
Author and photographer Jack Livingston is a Baltimore-based artist, writer, teacher, and editor.
