'not a plane Figure, but a Solid' (After Abbott) is an exploration of how photography has the ability to enhance the sculptural, contrary to common belief that it removes from the object it records. This ability to augment the sculptural via photography came through the amalgamation of its singular perspective, flattening of subject matter, and ability to preserve transient moments. Through these photographic abilities I was able to allow form to precede function.
In sculpting with the photographic medium itself, specifically analogue film waste, I was able to produce a body of work that operated holistically. As a result whatever being photographed grants or removes from the sculpture is, consequently, to the detriment or benefit of photography itself.
The proposed exhibition to this work (unrealised due to the outbreak of Covid-19) envisioned the sculptural documentation to be photographed on large format slide film, offering an unmediated and unedited authentication to their existence. These would then be elevated to the status of unique objects atop plinths, simultaneously remaining image and object, emphasising both their photographic materiality and three-dimensionality. The choice to keep these as one of a kind works (with no prints reproduced from them) blurs the boundaries of photography and sculpture even more.
This main body of the exhibition would be introduced by a framed and float mounted print, 'Where Materiality Begins (film negative)'. This photograph instigates an awareness to the edge of the slides as a point of focus, and also the flattening of subject matter by photography as well as a reduction of the work to its barest component of using photographic material as subject matter. This photograph, when displayed alongside its title, offers an accessible entry into the understanding of the work for the viewer.
Overall I hope to pose the questions of when is a photograph a photograph, and when is a sculpture a sculpture?
