statement

Tactile yet intangible forms swim across the surface of the paper. Some have a faint metallic sheen to them, catching the light and throwing it back, reminiscent of oil slicks or maybe prisms. Others reveal layers of subtle color, with a ghostly sense of depth. These pieces do not depict a person or a place, rather they hover at the edge of recognition, living in a world of almost abstraction.

This series, Disquiet, is an echo of my unease and inability to reconcile what I make with what I believe. Human beings are altering the balance of the Earth's environment. Water, air, earth are all changed and contaminated by things that we humans have done. In my own tiny corner, I try to do what I can to not contribute to this global problem. And yet.

And yet, I make photographs. In the darkroom. Working with the chemicals, my awareness of the consequences of these materials – I personally know multiple people who can no longer enter the darkroom because of developed silver sensitivities and I know of darkrooms that have not always been above board with how they dispose of chemicals, which would eventually lead to ground water contamination – is heightened. How will this process that I love affect me? How do I reconcile my belief that I should do everything in my power to prevent further abuse of the planet with a visceral need to work in the darkroom?

So these pieces are the result. I work with expired or donated paper from photographic friends. Materials that are extinct. Brands that are no longer. And I push, pull and respond chemically to the marks that I make in the silver. I've returned to my first artistic experiences in drawing and mark making to try to unearth the alchemical properties of the paper itself to reveal some of the process in the final image. To record and embed that unease, that disquiet directly into the grains of silver. And I push the chemistry past the point of exhaustion, eeking out the last drop of functionality before I contain and (properly) dispose of my materials.

I don't believe that this is all that I can do. But it is my first step towards finding a more conscientious means of making images.

bio

born: 1977, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

education

Parsons The New School for Design, MFA in Photography, 2009
New England School of Photography, Certificate, 2006
Amherst College, BA, 1999

selected awards/honors

Work featured as an Editor's Pick on LensCulture's website, 2014
Selected to participate at CENTER's Review Santa Fe portfolio review event, 2013
Selected as one of the 175 top finalists for Photolucida's Critical Mass, 2010
Wise Fine Arts Award granted from Amherst College, 1999

selected publications

Baillargeon, Claude. Shadows of the Invisible, exhibition catalog. Rochester, Michigan: Oakland University Art Gallery, 2014
Ou, Arthur. Shadows Written. Hartford, Conneticut: Real Art Ways, 2011.

selected solo or two-person exhibits

Photographic Resource Center, Northeast Exposure Online feature: Concealed at first at last I appear: Chemicals + Light, Boston, Massachusetts, 2014
The Photography Gallery, Concealed at first at last I appear, University of Notre Dame, Indiana, 2012
MeetFactory International Centre of Contemporary Art, Open Atlier, Prague, Czech Republic, 2012
Real Art Ways, Light in Sound: Concealed at first at last I appear, Hartford, Conneticut, 2011

selected group shows

Hynes Convention Center, On Photography, Boston, Massachusetts, 2015
Oakland University Art Gallery, Shadows of the Invisible, Rochester, Michigan, 2014
Gray Gallery, Image : Constructed:: Constructed : Image, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, 2014
Photographic Resource Center, Fall Back, Spring Forward: Photography in New England, Boston, Massachusetts, 2014