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Chris McCaw
"Sunburned GSP#420 (Arctic Circle, Alaska)"
2010
Unique gelatin silver paper negative
12 x 20 inches |
Chris McCaw created the arresting pictures on view in "
Ride Into the Sun," the artist's winter 2011 solo show at
Stephen Wirtz Gallery (San Francisco, CA), using an unconventional technique. The artist loads handcrafted view cameras as large as 30 x 40 inches with expired
silver gelatin photographic paper, tilts the camera lenses skyward, and opens the shutters for hours. Even on cloudy days, the photo paper is soon overexposed. As time wears on, however, the light-sensitive chemicals that coat the paper are
solarized, and the prints' tones are transmuted in curious ways. In many of McCaw's works, the sun appears as a dark, arcing streak and the landscape and sky as shades of grey. During some of McCaw's longer exposures, the sun's brilliance, laser-like, burns through the paper, tracing its progress as a charred tear.
