ABOUT THE ARTIST:
Andrew Sovjani is a visual artist recognized for blurring the boundaries between photography, printmaking and painting. Raised in a family of working studio artists, art making is in his blood. Andrew has drawn from his life experiences in the scientific world and living in Asia to create transcendent bodies of work that are often extremely peaceful. His award-winning photographs have been shown in exhibitions throughout the U.S., Europe and Japan and are held in many public and private collections. He has won awards of distinction at many of the top fine arts festivals in the nation and was a finalist for the Critical Mass book awards in 2008 and 2016.
Andrew's studio, Folding Light Studio, is housed in an old mill building in Easthampton, Massachusetts. STATEMENT: The Fabrication of Space series is an investigation into our perception of space and light within the unified surface of the two-dimensional silver gelatin print through a combination of photographic imagery and post exposure photochemical mark making.
I create and photograph arrangements of white paper using a view camera and monochromatic film. The corresponding straight silver gelatin print then becomes the launching point for spatial play, illusion and interpretation by employing unique toning methods and hand drawn chemical line work in an iterative bleach/redevelop process that embraces chance and premeditation simultaneously.
I have chosen to retain the purity and integrity of the print surface, constraining the mark making to those that only alter the silver particles within the surface of the print. By maintaining the unified surface, I am placing the photographic imagery on the same plane as the post-exposure alterations. This self-imposed limitation also encourages the development of new ways and tools to work the print, blurring the lines between photography and printmaking.
Each final print is a unique record of this printing performance.