Ashes upon the moon #22014
Artist statement: Ashes upon the moon might also have been named after the poem ‘On visiting a Taoist Master in the Tai-T’ien Mountains and not finding him’ by Li Po (AD 701–62). A common theme in early Chinese poetry is the search for something and to not find it. Instead, meaning is created through engagement with your surroundings and the relationship of things in nature.
I travelled to Caoshan, Taiwan to look for a moon landscape and instead found a green and fertile scene. This was neither the moon nor the unknown landscape I had sought. In the absence of the moon these photographs capture the action of ash thrown into the air. Ash is evocative of absence and embodies an encounter with the ineffable.
Chinese ink is traditionally made of carbon collected from the ashes of burnt pine trees. These images are a type of drawing; the ash is to the landscape what ink is to paper.
Also known as Giclee prints or bubble-jet prints, pigment ink-jet prints are generated by computer printers from digital or scanned files using dye-based or pigment-based inks. A series of nozzles spray tiny droplets of ink onto the paper surface in a precise pattern that corresponds to the digital image file. In dye-based prints the ink soaks into the paper, whereas in pigment-based prints the ink rests and dries on top of the paper surface.
Whilst the term is broad, pigment ink-jet prints have come to be associated with prints produced on fine art papers. They are the most versatile and archival method of printing available to photographers today. A wide variety of material on which an image can be printed with such inks are available, including various textures and finishes such as matte photo paper, watercolour paper, cotton canvas or pre-coated canvas.
