Decomposite (iris)

By: Jon Verney

No Longer Available

Completed

2023

Medium

Archival pigment print, dibond

Dimensions

10.25" x 8"

Description

My work centers on pursuing moments of wonder. With equal emphasis on science and magic, my creative practice is driven by curiosity and haptic experimentation. Decomposites is an ongoing series that explores themes of transformation, flux, and dissolution using the physicality of photographic emulsion. The source material for this work is a collection of found, anonymous photographs. Focusing on a specific batch of polaroid film from the 1970’s, I cook these snapshots on a hot plate, causing them to undergo radical transmutations. Suddenly inundated with water after decades of being dry, the polaroids tear themselves apart. This disruption causes the relative banality of the original imagery to break open and reveal vast networks of intricate fractal patterns and reticulation. Through this process, a dimensional topography of ridges, breaches, and voids forms across the film, which I collage with fragments of paint and then rephotograph. By reproducing them at a greater scale, my intention is to lend these micro-happenings a seismic quality. In this way, these dioramas of old chemistry become conduits for expressive energy and movement, emoting larger natural systems of geologic and cosmic change.

About this Artist

Jon Verney

Jon Verney is a visual artist whose practice interweaves the materiality of photography and painting to explore themes of dissolution and transformation. Found imagery, natural phenomena, and chance inform his work with photography’s physical, fluid qualities. Verney received his MFA from Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan in 2016 and a BFA in Painting from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2010. He exhibits his work nationally and internationally and has been an artist resident at the Vermont Studio Center, the Studios at MASS MoCA, Penland School of Craft, the SIM Residency in Reykjavik, and spent two years in Florence, Italy working at Studio Art College International. His studio practice is currently based in Brooklyn, New York, and North Adams, Massachusetts.

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