CORNWALL– The Cornwall Library presents artist Sarah Prud’homme’s brand-new series, Inhuman Time, a meditation on stones gathered from the New England coast, opening with a reception Jan. 21.
According to a statement: Prud’homme’s stones were produced over 400 million years back, when volcanic lava was propelled to the earth’s surface area. Mainly basalt, they have high concentrations of magnesium, iron, and calcium, which provides a rich black color. As they cooled and were formed by ocean wave action they became smooth and round, which mesmerized the artist’s eye.
In making these pictures, Prud’homme used a digital cam to record twenty to fifty images of each stone, which she layered in Photoshop to reveal what generally leaves our look. While this strategy was established out of requirement– to overcome the medium format electronic camera’s shallow depth of field– Prud’homme accepted it and used it to increase the size of the stones to sometimes their real size. These images examine a stone’s surface area from its center to its outer edges, leading to a hyperfocused composition that appears both flat and three-dimensional. This highlights the fact that photography develops its own truth rather than just recording reality.
Inhuman Time consists of stones of different shapes and colors, each of which reflects their point of origin. In her images, Prud’homme removes single stones from a crowded beach and examines them carefully, which individualizes and monumentalizes them. The stones’ smooth roundness and blackness versus an infinity of white reveals their ineffable, immanent qualities. In her grid of a lots oval stones, Prud’homme emphasizes the resemblances and subtle differences in between each example. The stones’ relatively similar shapes trigger the eye to compare and contrast them, and encourages viewers to become active observers. The grid remains in the art historical custom of “typologies,” exemplified by the work of minimalist artists such as Karl Blossfeldt and Bernd and Hilla Becher.
With Inhuman Time, Prud’homme hopes the viewer will find something about beauty/art/science/ math/nature/reality/ fact. Or a minimum of assess the reality that humans and stones are composed of the exact same minerals, that deep space is interconnected, which our survival depends on this awareness.
Prud’homme lives in Brooklyn, NY, and invests as much time as she can at her household’s home in Cornwall, she stated. She has an MFA from the School of Visual Arts. Her thesis was a series of cubes installed with abstract photos of the human body that was included in “Somatogenics,” a show curated by Cindy Sherman, Sarah Charlesworth, and Laurie Simmons at Artists Area. Prud’homme’s work has actually appeared at Brooklyn Cottage, and in several group shows in New York.
Inhuman Time, Pictures by Sarah Prud’homme, runs from Jan. 21 to March 4, with an artist’s reception from 5-7 p.m. Jan. 21. The general public is welcome; registration is required. Go to cornwalllibrary.org/events/