Triage – Plaster Series – 2015-2016
This work is an examination of a specific medium, slide film and the cultural DNA embedded in the timeframe captured during its manufacturing life span, roughly from 1935-2010. A component of this work is also an investigation into my ancestry and an analysis of my genetic data.
Random slides have been gathered from estate sales and the personal family of the artist and cut into with a scalpel. The slides are then sewn into a cotton gauze bandage and incorporated into various combinations with other materials. A red thread is used as a symbolic reference to bloodlines and other cultural mythologies.
I learned how to process film in a traditional darkroom at a point in time when the negative was held as sacrosanct. To destroy the film was the ultimate act of desecration. A suicide. It is difficult to escape this sentiment. Every incision with the blade feels like a terrible violation, a betrayal, an act of defiance or one of surrender.