ALTERNATIVE
Alternative Photographic Processes & Unique Work
July 12 - August 20, 2022
Curatorial Statement
The diverse photographic processes featured in Alternative transcend the tropes of photography; this exhibition showcases a range of techniques including wet-plate collodion tintypes, reimagined cyanotypes, platinum-palladium prints, re-actualized platinum “ghost” portraits, bromoil prints and photo sculptures. These practices, although rooted in the history of the medium, are inspired and innovative. The nine artists, from the Bay Area and beyond, are drawing a bridge between the past and the present with their conceptual explorations and personal observations. Their acute visions animate and invigorate a compelling dialogue, engaging the viewer in new ways of considering the ever-evolving medium of photography.
Tony Bellaver
Platinum-Palladium Prints
Exploring another trope of the medium, the landscape, Tony Bellaver captures deforested areas of the West with a medium format film camera, using a 20th century traditional tool and the 19th century platinum palladium printing process to reflect on contemporary environmental issues.
Edie Bresler
Unique Pigment Prints with Embroidery
Another form of early portraiture in photography is the anonymous nude. Edie Bresler, observing the vulnerability of the sitter in a series of nudes captured before 1910, transforms the portraits through alternative processes and applies fine embroidery, creating an echo to the original photograph and imagining the stories of these individuals.
Charlotta Hauksdottir
Mixed-Media Composite Photos
Charlotta Haksdottir deconstructs her landscape photographs captured in her homeland of Iceland and in California by building sculptural composites. The fragmented photographic cutouts reflect the limitation of the photographic medium in capturing it all, both the landscape and the inner psyche while addressing by its dislocation the complex relationship of humans with their environment.
Andy Mattern
Platinum Ghost Print
Andy Mattern reactualizes the traditional platinum printing process after observing that historical platinum prints leave a remnant of their images when in contact with paper over decades. By rephotographing these “ghost” portraits and printing the resulting images in platinum, Mattern investigates how photography can reproduce itself through time periods.