Photolinen Walls, 1979-1981

The graffiti, old advertising, and decaying surfaces of exterior walls are of social significance. Through the research of cave paintings, anthropologists have discovered much about the social structure of prehistoric man. Similarly, our contemporary environment can be studied and cultural attitudes deciphered through the written notations on walls. As an artist I am interested in adding further layers of marks and color to these surfaces, expanding upon what already exists. Walls can be impersonal monuments; with my conscious photographic documentation and manipulation, I personalize them as well as reflect upon society’s unconscious statement.

In this series, I am concerned with textural surfaces. I am interested in the contrasting effects which result from notations on various surfaces, such as brick, concrete, wood, as well as the way shadows change a wall surface. I incorporate traditional black and white photographs onto photosensitized linen, to create different surface textures as inherent in actual walls. The process entails laminating paper silver prints onto a larger photographic image on linen. The images are taken from the same wall, yet are different negatives and perspectives.

I am also interested in the idea of “wallness”  I tear the edges of the linen to relate a rawness that is inherent in actual walls. I paint a wash along the borders of the photolinen which randomly picks up irregularities in the linen, signifying the random irregularities that appear in actual walls. I print them large in order to mimic massive walls.