Douglas Stockdale
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American, born 1949
Projects/Portfolios
Entanglement
Introduction
Entanglement explores how a multi-decade, decommissioned WWII/Korean War practice bombing range in southern California can be representative of historical policies that create the structural inequities that are present today. These blue-and-white images of an entangled California landscape are local in scope but universal in what they represent. My aim is to make people sense the underlying conflict and tension embodied in this contemplative artwork.
I use expired 120mm film as a physical representation for past experiences. The unpredictability of the expired film provides parallels to the inexactitude of memory and the unknown impact of past policies. The decay of the film corresponds with the decomposition of the former military site as well as deteriorating historical policies. I use a cyanotype printing process exploring how the Prussian blue inherent to a cyanotype abstracts, modifies, disguises, or otherwise alters how the images content is perceived. Through this medium, I convey references to memories of trauma that are held within the land itself.
This urban environment has buried unexploded military ordnance that has not been entirely cleared and remains an unseen threat. This is similar to how past public policies have morphed and changed over time, usually out of sight of public scrutiny potentially presenting a similar underlying danger to society. While evoking a sense of the transience of things man-made, humanity is not seen, their presence is felt.
Critical Mass 2023 Finalist
Fabrik Projects, Los Angles, CA, United States
Douglas Stockdale (American, b. 1949) is an artist, Critical Mass 2023 Finalist and Senior Editor & Founder of PhotoBook Journal, the contemporary photobook review magazine. Stockdale is on the adjunct faculty of the Los Angeles Center of Photography (LACP) and Medium Photography (San Diego, CA) and SouthEast Center for Photography (SEC4P).
His artwork is in various permanent collections, including Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma (MACRO, Italy), Reminders Photographic Stronghold (RPS, Tokyo) and the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library (Yale University, MA).
He has self-published four limited edition artist books; The Flow of Light Brushes the Shadow (Singular Images Press, 2022), Middle Ground (2018), Bluewater Shore (2017), Pine Lake (2013), with both Bluewater Shore and Pine Lake selected as Best Photographic Books for each respective year. His Italian urban landscape project Ciociaria is published by Edizioni Punctum (2011). Stockdale’s photographs and book have been featured on LensWork, Lenscratch, photo-eye and Silvershotz as well as others.
Stockdale has a Masters from University of LaVerne (CA)and undergraduate industrial design/engineering from Michigan State University. His studio is located in Southern California.
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