Photography is typically perceived as solely a two-dimensional, indexical representation. Its material qualities and capacity to render visible signs of its own making are often overlooked. In turning my focus inwards and giving precedence to the process and materiality of photography, rather than to its ability to produce faithful representations, I am interested in using the medium to depict its own condition whilst exploring the slippage between different applicants and processes. Loose Constructions are the result of these experiments. In an attempt to share my process through this webpage, below are the layers I create when building these images.
A portrait of a Delphinium. Created through the lumen process. Lumen printing is a cameraless form of photography where you create an image with photo sensitive paper and the sun.
An oxeye Daisy lumen print, pulled through a flatbed scanner.
Studio arrangement including both lumen prints, hand cut and rearranged to begin forming a composition.
Studio arrangement of found objects ready for 3D scanning sitting on mylar. The 3D scan will later be added to the image digitally.
Another studio arrangement, ready for re-photographing with final shapes and composition laid out. Here you’ll see all the physical layers including the three dimensional objects.
This is Loose Construction 004. This image was printed out as a 16×20 print. I took this print on several walks with me to re-photograph it in natural landscapes to bring it into its final phase.
Loose Construction 006 is an evolved version of the previous image. As is each, Loose Construction.
Check in on my website for more updates and progressions.
Feature image: Meganelizabeth Diamond, 08LooseConstruction007, the latest image in the Loose Constructions series to date, 2022. Courtesy of the Artist.
Image description: A collage image of white, purple, green, and pink. There is an optical illusion to the image: photographic prints have been cut-up and placed on top of green grass along with three-dimensional objects, and the bottom half of the image is a mirror. At the centre of the image an ochre-coloured rock sits atop of the mirror.
Meganelizabeth Diamond is an interdisciplinary visual artist who works with photography, collage, and moving image currently based in Camp Morton on Treaty 1.
Diamond was a New Media Artist in Residence at Video Pool Media Arts Centre (2019-2020). Her work has shown at artist-run centres and festivals internationally such as Flux Gallery (2019), The Forks/Parks Canada (2017), Forthwith (2018), IBID Curitioral (2019), PAVED Arts (2019), Wallspace-LNK (2022), Antimatter [media art] (2021), Light Field (2019) and RPM Festival (2022). As a practicing artist driven by process, Diamond facilitates workshops exploring a wide variety of photo-developing techniques. Beyond her personal studio practice, she is currently the Artistic Director at PLATFORM centre for photographic + digital arts and the Director of the Winnipeg Underground Film Festival.
Diamond’s practice utilizes both the analog and the digital in alternative modes of image building. Currently, her studio practice involves pushing and pulling photographs through multiple processes creating a feedback loop. This results in work that embraces the digital line and other slippages. Her images explore our emotional connection to the natural world by using photographic materials to depict flora and fauna abstractly, and in some pieces, nature is depicted physically. In her constructions she is juxtaposing the real with the artificial – playing with the boundary of fact and fiction whilst expanding the surface of the image. [www.meganelizabethdiamond.com]
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