Ethereal Echoes (2025)
I create photographs without a camera, guided by pioneers like Pierre Cordier, whose 1950s chemigrams redefined photography. Using fire, chemicals, and light-sensitive paper, I collaborate with materials to reveal landscapes shaped by chance. Each piece begins with a barrier—melted, brushed, or dripped—exposed to flame or sunlight. Chemicals seep into cracks, etching marks that feel like memories: a wind, a horizon.
Mentored by Cordier’s experimental spirit and working alongside collaborators like Frank Lopez and Chuck Kelton, I balance control and surrender. At Lakewood Cemetery in Minneapolis, I wove site-specific elements into the work—ivy ash, pollen stains, pine boards from old funeral biers. The frames, carved from wood that once carried caskets, bind the images to place and time.
Photography, for me, is transformation. Light alters paper. Chemistry leaves scars. What remains is proof that beauty thrives where precision and accident collide.
A video documentary by R. J. Kern fuses philosophy with photographic chemistry to create art. Drawing on teachings of impermanence and rebirth, Kern employs Chromoskedasic techniques – altering silver gelatin prints to produce shimmering, mirror-like surfaces reminiscent of 19th-century daguerreotype reflecting rhythms of life, death, and renewal. Through organic forms shaped by light and alchemy, this series invites viewers to pause and reflect on the cycles that connect us.
Music: Sarah M. Greer; Framing Millwork: Jessica Nelson; Video Editing: Independence Barnes
