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Dean Kessmann
"Test Strips"

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Test Strips (grid of 9 framed prints), 2011, Unique gelatin silver photograms, courtesy of the artist

Artist Statement
"Test Strips" continues what has become an ongoing exploration of the materiality of paper. In this work, my focus turned to standard sheets of 8 x 10 inch silver gelatin paper. Working exclusively with light, light-sensitized paper, and photochemical processes has renewed my excitement about the essential characteristics, inherent materiality, and ephemeral nature of photography. Each unique photogram has eleven bands of tones ranging from pure white to pure black. The modular prints are meant to be displayed such that the tones incrementally go from white to black, or vice versa, and then back again in endless variation. In a fundamental way, this work reflects upon the positive and negative relationships inherent in photography. Yet, the clearly defined steps between the tones resist the analogue nature of continuous tone silver gelatin paper; oddly enough, the gradients are reduced to a more stair-stepped, digital form of representation.

Artist Bio
Dean Kessmann’s work has been included in exhibitions at Furthermore, Washington, DC, Orlando Museum of Art, Orlando, FL, White Flag Projects, St. Louis, MO, Miller Gallery, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, American University Museum, Washington, DC, MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA, Museum of Contemporary Religious Art, St. Louis, MO, and Photographic Resource Center, Boston, MA, among others. His exhibitions have been reviewed in the Huffington Post, Art Papers, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and ARTFORUM. In 2009 he was an artist-in-residence at Light Work. Finally, Kessmann is an Associate Professor at George Washington University, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate students.