Stacks 2010 / 2010

Penelope Davis employs a photogram technique on color paper to visualize the complex procedure with which she transforms her source material, “book.” The artist states: “The final images are not simply photographs but rather the visible result of a process – a chain of transformations and inversions – whose completion represents an object far removed from its origin.”
Horst Klöver


TRANSFORMATIONS

In the beginning was the book...Penelope Davis (*1963) collects old volumes and “pours” them in silicon molds, filling these with a type of resin so that after the resin hardens the recreated books appear like glass objects. Davis subsequently treats each “glass book” with colored gels and adds additional color filters in the darkroom. Then Davis exposes the books with a photogram technique on color paper. Her densely atmospheric, mysterious images are thus created completely without the use of a camera. The artist says about her work: “The final images are not simple photographs but record a process – a chain of transformations and inversions – that creates the trace of an object many steps removed from its origin.”