Most of my photographic practice takes place on the street, but I am also a designer, and I have a studio practice that allows me to explore formal issues of color, line, form, geometry, and transparency.

In 2016, I was experimenting with my camera. I used some ping pong balls that were lying nearby, and a bit of reflective colored paper, and some other random objects I found, and I tried playing with all the dials on my camera, enjoying the freedom of not knowing where I was going. I discovered that by using multiple exposures I could move around the still life set up, as long as it was done very quickly; a choreography between myself, my camera and the objects. Each image is made of three exposures created simultaneously within seconds of each other. I began to think about how the Cubists believed that viewing an object from many angles creates a more dimensional understanding than from one fixed viewpoint. My movements, combined with the camera’s eye began to tell its own story about what I was seeing. The final images are an amalgam, and I am never sure what I might get until I review the images.

I enjoy the process of composing and creating a fully constructed artificial world to photograph. I do not manipulate these images with post processing, rather I allow the happenstance of my movements and the layering of the images as I move the camera around the scene to create the composition. In this way the images are always a surprise, and the camera has a stake; as much the composer as I am. The resulting images are hints at other galaxies, and portals into other worlds.

GRETCHEN GRACE

GRETCHEN GRACE