the heliogenic works


these one-of-a-kind light-sensitive works
dispensed with the emphatic figure-ground
relationships that characterized the portrait-
like cameraless works of 1991–94. my intent
was to further obfuscate natural tendencies
to assign familiar meanings to the unfamiliar,
fugitive and unknown. the centralized focus
of the photograms was subverted by
imprecise geometric arrangements of line
and tone that uniformly "redistributed"
meaning through an ambiguously scaled
space. it was my intention to divert
the attentive gaze; to promote consider-
ation of the periphery and non-acute vision.
i created these heliogenic works using
a proprietary variant of the iron-silver
salt photoemulsion chemistry traditionally
associated with the van dyke brown print.
each piece was tray-developed and pro-
cessed for archival permanence in the
manner of conventional photographs.
because the photochemical response
of the photoemulsion was extremely
slow, exposure times varied from five
minutes to eight hours. stabilizing toners,
high-quality chemically neutralized mordant-
ed supports, and UV-protective coatings
were used throughout the series which
is made up of approximately 30 pieces.

santa fe, new mexico   |   june 2005  (rev. 05.23)