This series consists of ink jet prints derived from scans
of crushed plastic bottles that I find on the street. At
first glance they seem very different from the prior work and
certainly they don’t contain the same lush richness. That
lush richness is due to the nature of film and paper and how
I use it - this is digital work - and while digital can
emulate anything - I’m not interested in emulation.
Like the prior work, this series is process driven. Prior
ideas are extended: formal compositions, an emphasis on
surface and texture derived from the medium.
The bottles are wrapped in dark filters in order to overdrive
a group of cheap scanners. In attempting to provide the
correct exposure the scanner generates digital noise in the
form of vertical color stripes and heavy pixilation. These
can be seen as analogous to the grid and grain mentioned in
earlier portfolio descriptions.
At times horizontal distortions are introduced. I don’t have
control over this. Additionally the light module is handheld
and when scanning I can’t actually see what I’m going to get.
My thought process is similar but the medium and the tools
are different; the results are visually distinctive. In some
ways they have more dynamic feeling than the photographs; a
sense of drawing more than painting - some seem almost
splattered on the paper. Of course these are analogies and
none of this is occurring - just as the swirling cloud
patterns are not really emotional input - or mark making( as
they say) on my part. The splatters are dirt from the bottles
on the scanner - where there are bold lines these are creases
from the moldings that have been crushed by a car...
As with the other work I set up a few constraints and let the
machines do their job. I’m interpreting but I consider it a
collaboration. I find it refreshing.
These are large ink jet prints starting at 24 x 25”.