Ground
Photograph
Ground
Ground
1994
Gelatin silver print
Overall: 17 1/8 × 12 11/16 in. (43.5 × 32.2 cm)
Gift of the artist in loving memory of her brother, Dr. John T. Carey
1997.0641.0002
Inscriptions frame verso-(applied printed label) "Gallery Frames..."
TextFor the past thirty years, Ellen Carey has approached photographic materials and processes as malleable tools for formal experimentation. In the early 1990s, she deconstructed the basic elements of photography in works like Ground, which was made using a glass negative scored to look like the focusing screen of a view camera (known as the “ground glass”); Lens, in which the enlarger’s light is the primary formal element; and G, a photogram made in a color darkroom. Since 1996, she has explored the possibilities of 20 × 24-inch Polaroid materials, manipulating the color “pods” to produce monumental works such as Multichrome Pulls. Implicit in Carey’s artworks is the idea of photography as a collaborative production in which art and science play leading roles.
