Psychometry is a series of black and white photographs exploring psychological issues relating to loss, anxiety, and memory. Stark compositions of old and discarded objects take on ambiguous meanings through complex photographic manipulation. By combining photography and drawing, scratching the negatives, and incorporating text and photograms, I infuse the photographs with tension and mystery. These images suggest a world in which ordinary objects transcend their material nature to evoke the elusive presence of the past.

The term “psychometry” refers to the pseudo-science of “object reading,” a psychic ability claimed by certain individuals to divine the history of an object with which they come into close contact. The objects I photograph, discovered in flea markets, estate sales, and antique shops, already have their own unknowable histories. They range from ordinary items such as doll houses, bird cages, and Christmas ornaments, to symbolically charged objects that relate to the human figure, such as dress forms, leg braces, and wigs. Once photographed, they form a visual language that hints at the lives that once surrounded them. Like a psychometrist, I collect these tarnished and decrepit items, evaluate them, and suggest a reading of their past. Ironically, these open-ended interpretations only reinforce the idea that the secrets of the past will remain forever lost.

Darkroom manipulation allows me to abstract the images, thereby placing the objects in a more psychological and less literal space. Extensive scratching, mark making, and blurring transform the original photographs into uncanny visions, seemingly connected to the unconscious. Furthermore, they call into question the veracity of the photograph itself. These manipulations enable me to create a new reality that balances the objects between fact and fiction.

Text also plays a vital role in this work. I frequently incorporate enigmatic phrases from favorite stories and poems into my photographs. Common expressions and nursery rhymes are often added as a means of suggesting memories of childhood. The viewer might expect the words to provide information, yet they fail to explain the imagery in any traditional sense. Moreover, they add a strong graphic presence to the overall pictorial structure. Juxtaposed with the objects, words and phrases only offer clues to mysteries that can never be solved.

Pervading the work is a sense of melancholy for the past, and a mounting dread that comes with the realization that our own stories will suffer the same fate. These images are designed to create a tension between beauty and decay that expresses anxiety over the passage of time, the inevitability of death, and a fascination with the unknown.

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