NORTHEAST EXPOSURE ONLINE ARCHIVE - CELEBRATING SIX YEARS

DECEMBER 2008 FEATURED ARTIST || Caleb Charland

Caleb Charland grew up in rural Maine and spent many summers helping his father renovate family homes, clearly developing a penchant for transforming household materials. Charland graduated with departmental honors from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2004. His exhibition record includes showings at Wall Space in Seattle, WA and the StoneCrop Gallery in Ogunquit, ME. In 2007, he was an Honorable Mention for the Aperture Prize and was the Fellowship award recipient from the Silvereye Center for Photography.

Applying a do-it-yourself aesthetic and citing inspiration ranging form children's books to science experiments, Charland produces elegant black and white studies, duly dubbed Demonstrations. Awarded a trustees' scholarship, Charland has recently started the MFA program at the Art Institute of Chicago.

  - Leslie K. Brown, PRC Curator

Click here for Charland's Web site

Click here for Michael Mazzeo Gallery


FEATURED PROJECT

Artist Statement
Demonstrations

My process and choice of subject matter stems from growing up in a do-it-yourself household where I learned to appreciate the power that tools and materials hold. As I explore the garage and search through the basement to solve these pictures, I find new ways of putting old tools and familiar materials to work. Much of this work pursues temporal phenomena and the influence of physical forces on matter. Photography serves my practice well as a means to experience this activity in a single moment or to combine several different moments into a single experience.

The artwork I create combines my scientific curiosity with a constructive approach to making pictures. I utilize everyday objects and fundamental forces to illustrate my own experiences with wonder. Each photograph begins with a simple question “How would this look? Is that possible? What would happen if…?” and develops through a sculptural process of experimentation. I first test my assumptions about the interactions of certain objects and forces. Often this leads to more fascinating properties than I could have envisioned. As each image develops over time the subject's natural tendencies strongly influence my aesthetic decisions. An image is complete only when my intentions rectify with the fundamental qualities of the objects and forces at hand.

- Caleb Charland

 

Click on each image for larger version and caption.



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