Black and white

Virtual Black and White

Virtual Black and White is a series images re-imagining the allegorical figurative sculpture in a 21st century form. In my work, I invite the viewer to stand somewhere between the imaginary and the real and consider new notions of authenticity and lived experience. These images depict antique sculptures whose history is chronicled, like bruises on skin, by the rough textures and blemishes on their surfaces – but these sculptures do not exist in physical form, and their history is an illusion. The scenes depict virtual objects and spaces created with 3D digital techniques commonly used to make convincing illusions in moviemaking. In this medium the ‘camera’ is directed inward, taking a picture of an imagined environment, instead of taking in the visible and material world.

Like the figure in the allegorical sculpture tradition, the sculpted body here stands as a symbol of a seductive platonic ideal attainable only in the imagination. The grotesque, on the other hand, brings the body back to earth, to the corporeal and visceral – the faces, distorted with emotion, celebrate the physical and material life of the body.

These black and white photographs are created by rendering computer generated 3D scenes as large size film negatives. The negative is then contact printed it in the darkroom on traditional black and white fibre paper. The ritual of darkroom printing, with its slow and decidedly material nature, along with the tactile surface of the final print, infuses the image with an added material presence.