A PDF of Totemic Objects from the Ocean
Please click on the sentence below to view this PDF:
Through processes of transformation I present these palladium prints of objects from the ocean.
I have placed a few works from my current ocean portfolio in the above linked PDF. These works have grown from my sense of sanctuary in long walks at the ocean’s edge during this time of Covid lockdown.
Feeling wave upon wave wash over the sand moved me into the cyclic and expansive motion of the ocean. To express the ocean’s vastness and materiality, I pick up remnants of sea life washed onto the sand.
Placing these fragments of sea life directly into my enlarger, I make camera-free large 16 X 20 inch negatives to contact print using brushed palladium metal on translucent Japanese gampi paper and expose the negatives and paper using the direct rays of the sun.
When I place these fragments in my enlarger, the depth of field is similar to a lens that is wide open on a large format camera. Some details are sharply focused while others are softly embraced.
Using palladium allows for tonal distinctions of extreme subtlety. Sometimes when I paint the palladium on the paper, I paint only the shape of the object and leave the rest of the paper open. This I have done with the corals. Centering the corals allows for the concentration of their forms.
Iris Series for GOS 2021
On October 16th and 17th I am thrilled to display my new Iris series at Gowanus Open Studios, Brooklyn, NY from 12 – 6pm each afternoon. The address is Shapeshifter Lab, 18 Whitwell Place, Brooklyn, NY 11215.
My Iris Triptych series explores new ways to capture these flowers. Every year when the Iris blooms in Spring, I attempt to evoke their beauty and their spiritual essence. In Japan, Iris is revered for its purifying properties. In many cultures the Iris stands for wisdom, trust, hope and valor. What better flower to bloom as Spring begins?
This year I attempted to display this flower’s energy. Through the calligraphic movement I employed to paint the palladium on the Japanese gampi paper to the exposure using sunlight, my thought was to convey the elegance and dynamism of these flowers.
Art Exhibit in Taos, NM
On exhibit at ChincharMaloney in Taos, NM https://chincharmaloney.com/shop-art/alice-garik
are fifteen of my unique palladium prints. That the black and white palladium prints are in Taos is significant because in Zuni culture the use of black and white in their pottery represents the upper world. The featured print here of her hands crossed in a flight movement with her bird tattoo relates to the world of spirit.
My palladium prints are handmade using the traditional analogue darkroom techniques of making negatives, either camera-less or photographs with a 4X5 large format camera. Brushing palladium on handmade Japanese gampi, I layer my negatives and expose them using the sun. The resulting montage is spontaneous and suggests movement with the images embedded in a paper with the tactility of silk.
Art and Poetry
When in the Gulf of Maine the sea ebbs, the seaweed named Irish moss is revealed. Irish moss cushions living things in layers. Rachel Carson describes this as “life exists on other life, or within it, or under it, or above it” in her book “The Edge of the Sea”.
At Arts Gowanus Open Studios, October 19 and 20, noon to 6 PM, 69 Second Ave., Brooklyn, I will display this camera-less, palladium print in collaboration with this poem by poet Diane Mehta.
Vent a dome, invent a habitat
for tubeworm, sea-stout, eelpout
waltzing, 700 degrees in love.
They must know their origin
is hydrothermal swirling,
that fate is motion-of-lfe
agitating to occupy the world.
