Portal to Process is a study in critical contrast. It is a three-dimensional sculpture that closely considers the context and relevance of a generally two-dimensional concentration. Ten “simple” cubes deliver the gallery an art drenched with underlying complexity. These light boxes confront the viewer with destroyed 35 mm negatives, destroyed silver gelatin prints, and computer-fabricated panels of perforated acrylic. These parts are all photographic media representing ten examples of the same subject, lighting fixtures. Light boxes are positioned in two adjacent stacks of five, roughly referencing the dimensions of a door. More specifically, ten square image panels relate to Lorenzo Ghiberti’s biblically inspired, “Gates to Paradise.” Peep-holes (door-viewers) placed at the center of each panel reinforce the language of a door, however also provide the viewer a fixed photographic viewfinder by which they become a voyeur. Notions of religiosity are quickly subverted by continual peep shows.
The work was initially conceived as a way of comparing the fragile analogue with the digital immortal. My personal paranoia regarding life’s ephemerality has led me down a path of chasing permanence through architecture and photography. According to Susan Sontag, “To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.” Reluctance to concede mortality has compelled my creations to contemplate conception and rebirth through digitality. Following my personal process of making and destroying, the audience may perceive this “new” light source as a ghost of the original lighting fixtures. At a lack of understanding, this sculpture still exists as a mysterious, perhaps even beautiful totem of celestial-red light.
