Jo Sandman
No. 3 from the Memento Mori series (detail), 1996, Van Dyke Brown photograms on Arches watercolor paper, 8 1/2" x11"
After years of commitment to abstract reductive practices, I recently became intrigued by how I might engage the real world in the same terms, but asking somewhat different questions. Then an experience gave me the opportunity to test this idea. As I walked the shore of a volcanic island, I came upon small pieces of coral which to my surprise actually resembled primordial heads with incomplete features.
In the studio I reshaped these "faces" into clearer focus to further define their features and individuality. To capture an impression of these sculptures, I made Van Dyke Brown photograms by placing each of the carved heads on light sensitized watercolor paper. The exposure to light caused the sculpture to cast its pale shadow onto the darkening paper producing a ghostly image. I captured not so much a visual document as a spiritual imprint.
These enigmatic images are open to multiple readings; for me they touch on the dark side of life, speaking to both Beauty and the Beast, the sublime and the ridiculous, the luminous and the monstrous. These meditations on mortality may evoke the frightening side of life or the grotesque aspects of the human psyche.
