Gerald Walsh

Gerald Walsh (born 1972) is an American photographer.

Biography

Gerald Walsh was born in the United States in 1972. He studied art with a focus on photography in undergraduate (1990-1994) and graduate (1994-1996) school. After being influenced by the photography of Mike and Doug Starn, he began to see the possibilities of the photographic medium. While in graduate school, he studied under Ellen Carey, well known for her abstract photograms and "pulls", and in 1995 began experimenting with abstraction in photography. The primary focus in his work is the element of gesture. Through subtraction of subject, he has been able to explore and emphasize the elements of abstraction in the photographic medium to create a body of work which challenges the historical view of not only photography as a valid art form, but also pure abstraction within photography as an expressive and emotional means to create images.

Images and Technique

Walsh became known by creating what he calls Lucemographs, essentially light drawings rendered onto photographic emulsion, whether onto film in the camera or more directly onto photographic paper or ortho film in the darkroom. By removing all subject and utilizing the only necessary element in nature to create an image onto photographic emulsion, the element of light, he creates unique images that contain no reference to natural reality and capture the evidence of his movements over time and space. Images are drawn onto conventional photographic paper, metallic silver polyester based paper (essentially film coated with an opaque silver emulsion), or ortho litho film, subtracting the photographic paper altogether. The unique images are then often toned and layered to create a three dimensional space which is uniquely abstract and pure. Often, unlike conventional photography, this image cannot be recreated as there is no negative. Sometimes these unique multilayered ortho film images are contact printed to create positive Lucemographs and then processed all over again resulting in an image which further explores the dimensions of random uncertainty, automatic writing, and gesture. By working the image and developing it over time, he is able to intuitively render it as it begins to become visible, essentially adding more to areas of the "canvas" that need to be emphasized resulting in an image that began as automatic writing later to evolve into a cohesive controlled work of art that bears the traces of his own unique physical movements and primal marks.

Created through subtraction, Walsh believes pure abstraction in photography is not only beautiful, it is expressive as the evidence of the artist's hand can be uniquely recorded and developed and an image can be worked from the ground up as it develops over time intuitively. The elements of the photographic process such as film, paper, developer, fixer, toners, and light are all that is utilized. Often, the camera and enlarger are subtracted from the equation as well.

Influences

* Mike and Doug Starn
* Ellen Carey
* Adam Fuss
* Jackson Pollock
* James Nares

Gallery Group Exhibitions

High Energy Abstraction, Ward-Nasse Gallery, New York, NY (1998)

Totally Abstract, Ward-Nasse Gallery, New York, NY (1997)

No England/No Amsterdam, juried by Mike and Doug Starn, Real Art Ways Gallery, Hartford, CT (1996)

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See Also

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