Carbon Pigment Prints
Plate composites -
What’s an analog camera? In a world overrun by everything digital; master photographer Guggenheim Fellow Michael P. Berman continues to amaze us with his immaculate carbon pigment prints. Like the Chinese shan shui paintings of the 5th century, his photographs evoke a commune with nature – a temporary withdrawal or retreat into the natural world. Armed with a fully loaded Wista metal field camera, Michael enters vast “wastelands” in search of fragments (within nature) that will inspire him to create. In conversations about his work, he often mentions the importance of “the ability to see what is there,” i.e. what happens when we abandon our social, philosophical and political convictions? We experience LIFE in its most raw form and if we’re lucky, we can also capture an amazing photograph. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008 and a grant from the McCune Charitable Foundation in 2011. Mr Berman is in the permanent collections of the MET, Amon Carter, Santa Fe Museum of art to name a few
Each fine silver print is unique and individually created by the artist; each is subtly toned and affixed to an aluminum plate. The plate itself is a relic, cut and filed by hand, layered with paint into which the photograph has been set, abraded back through the pentimenti, rubbed with graphite and pure pigments, and, finally, waxed.
480 plates installation
contained Banana peel