Anna Luk - ‘The Thing Itself’
My practice explores the ontology of photography by pursuing qualities typically tethered to painting and sculpture.
I work with the materiality and the ability of the medium to not only depict an external subject but also record the physical actions exerted on it. Each photograph is created in the darkroom using a cameraless process to distil the medium down to its fundamental elements of light, time and light-sensitivity.
Using a handmade ‘negative’, I combine the gestural mark making capabilities of painting with photography.
Despite the increased recognition of its ‘expansion’, photography is typically perceived solely as a two-dimensional, indexical representation. Its material qualities and capacity to render visible the signs of its own making are often overlooked.
