ALCHEMY IN MATERIALITY

ROSEGALLERY is pleased to present The Alchemy in Materiality, an exhibition of works by John Chiara as part of PST ART: Art & Science Collide. The Alchemy in Materiality offers an enthralling journey through John Chiara’s innovative career. It presents a comprehensive retrospective of his work, inviting viewers to contemplate the elusive essence of the present moment, seamlessly bridging the realms of art and science with a captivating, visceral aesthetic. 

Seamlessly fusing art and science, John Chiara’s practice forges a unique process which combines photography, sculpture, and immersive experience. At its core are his meticulously crafted cameras; essentially large scale yet portable camera obscuras.

Within the dark chamber of these cameras, Chiara choreographs a precise interplay of light and chemistry on positive color photographic paper, deftly controlling light and manipulating the emerging images with an innate touch. The resulting pieces are profoundly perceptual bearing traces of their unconventional origin, rendered in soft, ephemeral hues that evoke materiality and transience. More importantly, they are all unique. With color positive photographic paper, no photo negative is created or needed, creating an image that is ultimately impossible to reproduce or duplicate. Chiara’s works are truly individual instances.
 

His artistry showcases the convergence of ingenuity, invention, and patient craftsmanship, transcending conventional photography to embody the interplay of light, time, and human perception.

John Chiara (b. 1971, San Francisco, CA) pushes the boundaries of the photographic medium through his choice of process and the mastery of its possibilities. His approach is distinguished by its incredible physicality and recalls the early days of the medium when artists dealt with heavy, awkward equipment and endured long exposure and development times. Chiara’s giant cameras, which he designed and built himself, are transported to locations on a flatbed trailer to produce one-of-a-kind large-scale prints. The design of the cameras, which is much like daguerreotype box cameras, allows the artist to simultaneously shoot and perform his darkroom work while images are recorded directly onto oversized photosensitive paper (not film). This process, which Chiara first discovered as a student in 1999, invites anomalies in his final prints and adds to the mystery and lyricism of his pictures.