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Chris McCaw
Heliomantic
September 15 - November 3, 2012
Artist Reception & Book Signing: Saturday, September 15, 6-9 p.m.
Photographer Chris McCaw opens his third Duncan Miller Gallery exhibition with Heliomantic on September 15th. On display for the first time, the one-of-a-kind photographs presented include large-format 30x40 prints. These new works will make their public debut along with a celebration of the artist's first book, Sunburn. A limited quantity of this 96-page hardcover book will available on September 15. Preorder a copy by clicking here.
McCaw's methods are unconventional. Instead of film, he places black & white photographic paper in his camera that is literally scorched by the sun. McCaw explains: "the subject, the sun, is an active participant in the printmaking... both creating and destroying the resulting photograph."
While the sun can be considered McCaw's collaborator, "McCaw's sophisticated understanding of materials, environment, and timing is evidenced through the remarkable control evinced in these photographs," writes Allie Haueslin. McCaw has braved extreme conditions with his unwieldy, home-built cameras from the Arctic Circle, the Galapagos, the islands in the Puget Sound, to the California coast. He says one of his favorite parts of the process is "watching smoke come out of the camera during the exposure."
According to Los Angeles Times art critic Leah Ollman, "The process reduces subjects - Joshua trees, palms, sea cliffs and mountain ranges - to silhouettes, giving McCaw 's daytime photographs the moody, elusive quality of Whistler nocturnals." The images - subtle, elegant, and even slightly ominous - invite close scrutiny.
Among the public institutions that have collected these works are Los Angeles County Museum of Art, New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
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