PENUMBRA Members Gallery | Bridget Conn
I identified as a writer before I did as an artist. Words were never a problem for me, until the last few years, where phenomena such as “information exhaustion” and “doomscrolling” seemed to take their toll and silence me. As I found myself unable to verbalize the onslaught of personal and political events that have transpired, my work evolved into a distillation of my reactions into a singular word or number. I use stencils to apply a resist onto silver gelatin photo paper, and process the prints to create chemigrams. I then cut these prints, rearrange them to disrupt the letterforms, and either sew them into singular physical pieces, or construct them into sculptural works. The abstraction of the stenciled letterforms mirrors my inability to find words that fully represent my emotions by rendering the language indecipherable. Instead, I embed the essence of the word and its significance into a physical, stitched photographic piece.
My formal concerns with this work involve using wood and thread to equate the photographic paper to a sculptural material. I observe parallels between sewing and analogue photography, in that both sewing machines and silver gelatin prints were once considered more automated technologies, but nowadays, both are viewed as involved in the creation of “hand-made” objects.
These pieces celebrate photographic paper as a physical medium, more than simply the substrate upon which an image from the outside world rests. By creating chemigrams, silver gelatin paper is freed to accomplish its essential property: to record the presence of light – a process firmly rooted in science but which also holds an allure akin to magic.
Bridget Conn is a photographic artist who explores the potential of photography as a chemical and physical medium through the creation of chemigrams. Dealing with themes of mark-making, written language, and the challenges of communication, Conn investigates the boundaries of the medium through prints, wall installations, and sculptural works. She received her BFA (2000) from Tulane University and MFA (2003) from the University of Georgia. She currently resides in Savannah, Georgia, USA.
Conn’s solo exhibitions include the Kimball Art Center in Park City, UT, the William King Museum in Abingdon, VA, the Art Museum of the University of Memphis, the Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art in Augusta, GA, and the Art Institute of Atlanta for Atlanta Celebrates Photography. Group shows include Gallery 1/1 in Seattle, the Center for Fine Art Photography in Fort Collins, CO, the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, CA, Candela Books + Gallery in Richmond, VA, and Sparks Gallery for the Medium Festival of Photography in San Diego. Internationally she has shown in the Chiang Mai Photography Festival in Thailand, as well as venues in Italy, Hungary and South Korea. Her work has been featured in Lenscratch, The Hand Magazine, Exposure Magazine, Analog Forever Magazine, Aeonian Magazine, and Focal Plane Journal.
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