Diario (Monochromes, 18/03 - 18/04/2021)
2021
Set of 31 cyanotypes on Fabriano paper
14.8 x 10.4 cm (per image, aprox.)
Diario (Spanish for ‘daily’ and/or ‘diary’) is an intimate photographic account of a month-long period spent in homebound solitude.
The work is composed of 31 monochromatic cyanotype prints, each bearing corresponding date and time intervals that indicate the beginning and end of their exposure, which in turn, were dictated by the artist’s conscious awake time during production: beginning exposure at the moment of waking and ending it upon sleep. Hence, each print represents a chance to play for the camera with the knowledge that nobody is consciously looking, a long, dead gaze that witnesses and condenses all performed action and outside phenomena into a single photographic exposure that lasts for the entirety of the a waking day.
By presenting each print as an individual witness or account, the series becomes a small archive of a continuous, long-term performance. A set of images that place presence and anecdotal account, indexicality, over the photograph’s usual perfect representation. Therefore, the work poses as a more honest form of photographic documentation that rejects optical manipulation for the sake of iconicity and concrete visual recognition. It lifts the burden of perfect representation off of the photographic image and instead, presents a complete monochromatic abstraction that is monotonous and austere, just like the repetitive and tasks in isolation it reflects. It is this very austerity, however, that allows the project to transform the rigid and repetitive rhythms of the mundane everyday into the poetic by translating minute variances of routine and structure (chance, imperfect repetition, flux) it once witnessed into comparatively distinct variances in hue, tone, and texture.