Photography: Movements in the Dark

By

Anna Grigorian

The intangible nature of movements and light is used to express the intimate relationship between an artist and her art. Light and body movements are turned into brushes painting on light sensitive paper.

Movements in the Dark – an analogue photo-series started in 2013. Prints are implemented in the photographic color darkroom and are based on the creative possibilities of the darkroom itself. Inspirations behind the approach come from the Chance Methodology, described in “The Art of Time” by Michael Kirby. According to Kirby, ”Chance methodology might say that at a given moment any one of a given number of alternatives is as good as any other.” (Kirby The New Theater) And although traditionally photography is not related with duration based arts, photographic darkroom is one of the aspects of the medium that has the ability to relate photography with time based artistic practices (e.g. long exposure time).

For this project, the principle of photograph, photogram, and movements are combined. Using chance methodology, I fix and control only certain aspects of the process, such as color, choice of the negative, density, time and leave the final pattern created by my movements to be determined by chance. Combined, the light from the enlarger and my movements create an unpredictable, irreproducible pattern on each piece.

Some compositions were produced using a negative with an image as a base, some were implemented “from scratch” in the darkroom without any starting image on the negative.

The project celebrates the effect of unpredictability, experimentation and altering as a key element in the relationship between artist and art.

Anna Grigorian

Anna Grigorian is a Montreal based artist born in Armenia. She is currently pursuing her BFA studies in Concordia University Fine Arts department. Incorporating elements of chance, game and mystery is central to her art practice. Her influences and inspirations mainly come from the ideas introduced to the art stage during the periods of surrealism, magical realism and postmodernism. You can visit http://photogrig.com/ to view more of her work.