Photography and magic are natural companions.  Stage magicians have traditionally relied upon misdirection, simulation and sleight of hand.  Photography, the only medium with a reputation for recording “truth,” is also notorious for its ability to deceive. The photographs in this exhibition relate photography to the golden age of magic, when adept conjurors delighted packed auditoriums with elaborate stage illusions.  In my images the photographer is the magician, a performer who creates tricks behind the curtain of the darkroom.  Objects in the images are often suspended, fooling the eye, but the illusions occur more frequently in the printing process, where photography is combined with drawing, and photograms question the veracity of the image itself.  The viewer is ultimately “tricked” into believing the photograph and seduced by the complexity of the darkroom performance.  In a digital age where viewers are primed to recognize and even expect photographic manipulation, the traditional silver print still holds a mystique that masks its potential for misdirection.

A subtext of this series is the plight of the magician’s assistant.  Always female, the glamorous assistant is frequently placed in perilous situations for the pleasure of the audience and viewer.  She never attains the prestigious status of the magician herself. Although she is instrumental to the delivery of the illusion and privy to the mechanics of the tricks, she is forever relegated to a subservient position.  Photographs such as Target Girl and Sawing a Woman in Half create anxiety and drama through the anticipation of impending physical danger.  The psychological tension in the photographs is dependent upon timing: the images suggest the seconds before the treacherous act is about to occur. Disappearing Act shows the contradiction between a woman who is simultaneously the center of attention yet disappearing before the audience’s very eyes.

Also included in this exhibition is a “sideshow” of anthotype prints.  An obscure nineteenth century photographic process, anthotypes are created by coating watercolor paper with the natural pigments of puréed berries and flowers.  The prints are exposed to full sunlight from several weeks to several months, the sun fading areas of the image that are exposed to light.  Because there is no way to “fix” these prints, the images are doomed to fade with time.  The imagery conjures a carnival atmosphere, recalling curiosities, circus acts, penny arcades and sideshows of the early twentieth century.  The black velvet curtains that surround the prints protect them from the light that will eventually cause their demise; further, they reference the theater, peep shows and drapes that are used to protect actual vintage prints in contemporary museums.