When Light Turns to Dust: photographs created from discarded negatives where the silver image has been eroded and replaced with dust
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Artist Lloyd Godman lived in the same house at Brighton Dunedin New Zealand for nearly 30 years, but it was only during the summer of 2002-3, that he discovered a series of old photographic negatives on the ground in the cellar left by a previous owner.
The silver gelatin images that might hold a reference to past lives and events had however decayed and been replaced largely by dust and dirt. At first, they appeared to have no aesthetic or cultural value. To a photographer, dust and dirt are a nuisance that degrades the image and needs to be avoided; but all that was left was dust. The silver image that had been formed by the action of light had been replaced by dust.
However, as a photographer, that he discovered a series of old negatives on the ground in the dark cellar left by a previous owner seemed to hold significance.
So Godman took the fragmented negatives and treated them as photographic artefacts and printed the abstract patterns formed by the dust as one would for a normal black and white photographic negative. The negatives were placed in a large format enlarger that allowed a generous black boarder to be created around the negative.
The visual results are an enigmatic series of photographic prints that seem part photograph, part photogram or Clich'e verre. Rich patterns and intricate textures created by the process of decay in nature during the passing of time are given a new life and obscure meanings that only each viewer can invent are suggested in the gestalt. In placed reference appears of the frame lines.
The project was symbolic of his marriage break up, move to Melbourne, where he now lives at the Bladessin Press, and his creative evolution to work with plants as an art medium where he has created xeric vertical gardens with Tillandsia plants.
About the author
Lloyd Godman established and was head of the photography section at the Dunedin School of Art for 20 years. Lloyd has a Master of Fine Arts from RMIT 1999. His experimental approach to photography first included the extensive use of the photogram technique with his Codes of Survival project based on Auckland Island in the Southern Ocean. To express his ideas, he developed a means of combining both photograms and photographs.
More than taking a purist analogue photographic approach to the medium his work had been centered on the actions of light and modulations of opaqueness and transparency.
He has had over 40 solo exhibitions and more than 200 group exhibitions. His current work uses living plants as a medium and he is at the fore front of integrating plants into architecture in a fully sustainable manner.
Cameron Bishop (PhD) is an artist, writer and curator lecturing in Art and Performance at Deakin University. As a curator he has helped initiate a number of public art projects including Treatment (2015/17) at the Western Treatment Plant; Sounding Histories at the Mission to Seafarers Melbourne with Annie Wilson; and the ongoing VACANTGeelong project with architectural and creative arts researchers, and leading Australian artists to explore and activate spaces left behind by de-industrialisation. As the recipient of a number of grants, awards and commissions he has been acknowledged for his community-focused approach to public art.
