Impressions of the Past
Nothing but Rust
Steel is the bedrock of modernity, a symbol of strength and durability, yet it has a fragility to the ravages of time.
These images are nothing but rust, grown out of steel; a collaborative process between myself, the elemental forces of nature, and time itself. Each print is unique, as the rain, sun and salt-winds embed their mark within the image as it ‘develops’ in the open air over several days, using sea-water.
Dovetailing one-hundred-year-old photographic negatives with the materiality of rusted steel, this work is a meditation on the fragility of man. The abstraction of the eroded materiality provides a connection to the decay often found at the edges of old glass plate negatives.
The people featured have been anonymised by time, all that remains of the fragments of memory of their lives are the original negatives and these Rust-Impressions. The preservation coating can be removed to witness the rust's slow erosion of the steel, the image and those memories.
These images are nothing but rust, grown out of steel; a collaborative process between myself, the elemental forces of nature, and time itself. Each print is unique, as the rain, sun and salt-winds embed their mark within the image as it ‘develops’ in the open air over several days, using sea-water.
Dovetailing one-hundred-year-old photographic negatives with the materiality of rusted steel, this work is a meditation on the fragility of man. The abstraction of the eroded materiality provides a connection to the decay often found at the edges of old glass plate negatives.
The people featured have been anonymised by time, all that remains of the fragments of memory of their lives are the original negatives and these Rust-Impressions. The preservation coating can be removed to witness the rust's slow erosion of the steel, the image and those memories.