Objects in Perspective: Artwork by Aspen Hochhalter & Natalie Abrams
This collaboration explores the transformation of form into space by the manipulation of perspective and scale through the photographic lens. As these elements shift in relation to each other our sense of scale is lost and the photographs cease to present merely form, but coalesce into ambiguous “scapes” that exude a sense of place, landscape and history. During the nineteenth century, wet plate collodion—one of the earliest photographic techniques—was used to document the exploration of the new frontiers in the American west; exotic, surreal landscapes emerged that challenged and expanded our experience of space and land. In this joint project, Hochhalter uses the wet plate collodion photo process to photograph Abrams’ sculptural works, at times drawing out the very grains of ochre pigment suspended in a wax based medium. The imperfections of voids and brush lines add to the sense of time.
The monolithic presentation of these images enhance the connotations of ambiguous landscape that not only reference the cliff faces, monuments, mountains and river beds of the west, but also the bluffs and valley floors of the unexplored ocean floor.
