Author: Lloyd Godman

Publisher: PHOTO-synthesis Media

Published: 2023-02-04

Total Pages: 26

ISBN-13: 0645715166

WHEN LIGHT TURNS TO DUST Please note: this EPub is optimized for viewing on Thorium Reader. Thorium Reader is the free EPUB reader of choice for Windows 10 and 11, MacOS and Linux. https://www.edrlab.org/software/thorium-reader Artist Lloyd Godman lived in the same house at Brighton Dunedin New Zealand for nearly 30 years, but it was only during the summer of 2002-3, that he discovered a series of old photographic negatives on the ground in the cellar left by a previous owner. The silver gelatin images that might hold a reference to past lives and events had however decayed and been replaced largely by dust and dirt. At first, they appeared to have no aesthetic or cultural value. To a photographer, dust and dirt are a nuisance that degrades the image and needs to be avoided; but all that was left was dust. The silver image that had been formed by the action of light had been replaced by dust. However, as a photographer, that he discovered a series of old negatives on the ground in the dark cellar left by a previous owner seemed to hold significance. So Godman took the fragmented negatives and treated them as photographic artefacts and printed the abstract patterns formed by the dust as one would for a normal black and white photographic negative. The negatives were placed in a large format enlarger that allowed a generous black boarder to be created around the negative. The visual results are an enigmatic series of photographic prints that seem part photograph, part photogram or Clich'e verre. Rich patterns and intricate textures created by the process of decay in nature during the passing of time are given a new life and obscure meanings that only each viewer can invent are suggested in the gestalt. In placed reference appears of the frame lines. The project was symbolic of his marriage break up, move to Melbourne, where he now lives at the Bladessin Press, and his creative evolution to work with plants as an art medium where he has created xeric vertical gardens with Tillandsia plants.