Scope Basel 2015

Duncan Miller Gallery is proud to present a solo booth of the works of Christopher Colville at the Scope Art Fair in Basel, Switzerland (June 17-21)

Colville’s “photographs” are made with process instead of camera. He places pieces of silver gelatin photographic paper on the desert floor near his home in Arizona on dark, moonless nights. Then using found and brought objects, he assembles compositions on top of the paper. He sprinkles gunpowder atop of the composition, lights a fuse and runs.

The light created from the resultant explosion casts the image of his composition into the paper. The heat creates atypical color hues. The velocity of the explosion creates movement within the piece.

From the Los Angeles Times review, “Shadowed specks freckle and sometimes pit the page. Swirls of soft gray and glowing light turn liquid or atmospheric. Colville's chance-driven process produces tonalities evoking charcoal, graphite, rust, smoke, ash. The pictures feel profoundly elemental. They are serendipitous. And gorgeous.”

After the explosion, Colville places the photographic paper into a light sealed envelope. He brings the work back to his lab and develops and fixes like a traditional black and white photograph.

Most of the works are small in scale and intimate. They require and demand close inspection.