Yet Another Crisis

by Johnathan Gueltzau

“I find the process of creating chemigrams to be alluring and sensuous. Traditional darkroom development of photographic prints is a tightly controlled process, whereas I find chemigrams to involve a looser process where improvisation welcomes surprise and intrigue. Images not of photons but of the recording of physical particles having mass reacting with and changing which silver halide grains are dark or light. Affecting one another as the reaction cascades across the page. I liken these images to cosmic vistas or the afterimages you see when you close your eyes after glancing into a bright light. Both infinitely close and far away, intimate in their detail and distant in their meaning. They also remind me of the scientific images I use to pour over in my incomplete set of encyclopedias as a child growing up in rural Missouri. I guide the development of these chemigrams without safe lights and with various household chemicals. I tend to use old photo paper most of the time, some of which expired long before I was born. Those common household items could be instant coffee, washing soda, wine, beer, salt, and vitamin C powder. I create these images in large batches, experimenting with the materials and pushing the limits to what is possible further each iteration. In my approach to working through and with chemigrams precision and timing are not of concern. All the images presented in this publication are on eight by ten-inch photo paper. I have many things that I wish the viewer to see and come away with. However, our differences in the way we perceive the world leaves each of us with something different. It is only through our shared language that we can come to some understanding to what we have seen.”