Artist Statement
The dead will not lie still,
And things throw light on things,
And all the stones have wings.
- Theodore Roethke
A friend once said that I, “Photograph invisible things, and can show you what they look like.” It’s true; my methods aren’t ruled by what I can see. My sympathies lie with the subtle ways a lens transforms a scene, in the latent potential of a negative and in what the chemical processes of the darkroom reveal in a developing image. These photographs are from an ongoing series titled Practicalities. With these images I look to unveil the sentiment, suggestion or specter lying just beneath the surface of a person, place or object. Each photograph is a gelatin silver print selectively bleached with potassium ferricyanide and split-toned in selenium and/or thiourea toner. This inherently aleatoric craft makes each print unique; they are artifacts of practice and practical experience. It’s not the seeing I care so very much about, but the beings seen and the gravity of their being seen again.
Working over twenty years in art and photography and exhibited nationally, James Luckett has earned and MFA from the University of Arizona, labored as a master printer in a forensic photography lab and taught award winning photography classes in Tucson and Chicago. Born in Stuttgart, West Germany and following the pleasures of living and working in Olympia, Tokyo and Ann arbor, James in recent years settled his studio and darkroom in southwestern Ohio. In 2011 his gelatin silver work was selected for an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award. Currently James serves as Assistant Professor and Head of the Photography major at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. You’re invited to follow James’ interests and exploits at his long running, ever evolving, always accumulating website consumptive.org.
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