Simple Systems

When writing about conceptual and minimal photography one must remember that at the beginning of Conceptualism, photography was simply a means to an end.   It was calculated by Kosuth, Lewitt and others that the idea becomes the machine that makes the art, thus photography was caught up in the machine through its immediacy and a distinction between conceptual and fine art photography was set in place.  

The objective of this series of photographs titled Simple Systems is to investigate the overlapping areas between conceptual, minimal and fine art photography.   The photogram was used as a method of working because it produces a "photomonotype”, more closely aligned with painting or printmaking.  The chromogenic print was used as the medium to carry the idea, thus involving color.  And the simplest of objects were used to maintain a minimal gesture, for example, paper and glass.  It was the intention of this work to be spontaneous and not to aspire to perfection; besides the media itself requires working in total darkness therefore a random way of working is the norm.

Nolan Preece

“CLICHÉ-VERRE”

Sensuous curves, suggestive shapes and exquisite detail best describes this new technique I have developed which I jokingly call Nolangrams.  A derivative of cliché-verre  (glass negative), the technique is relatively new to fine art photography. These photographs are a continuation, completed within the past few years, of a technique I developed and learned to control in 1979.  It involves the application of soot from a kerosene lamp on to glass and then directly forming an image in the soot through the use of solvents and an eyedropper.  The resulting image on the glass is then printed as a film negative would be printed from a conventional enlarger on to silver photographic paper or the glass image may be digitally scanned into a computer.  The silver print can then be duo toned in selenium to acquire surreal dimensional qualities or with a scanned in digital image, variations of color may be added.  These images on glass are reproducible and may be printed as many times as needed.  This series is the result of digital scanning.

Upon meeting Douglas Kent Hall in 2000, I asked him what I should do with my process.  He told me, “Become the maestro, name it, teach it, present it to the world.”  So I started calling them Nolangrams after students began using that description.  Although I have done sporadic research over the past two decades trying to find a body of work that might have been done along these lines, I have been unsuccessful.

Nolan Preece