Kaaterskill Falls in Love - Again

20’ x 4’ Backlit film, scratched with scalpel. Alcohol based paint, watersoluable crayons
Boiler Space, March 2024

A photo-composite I created on my 60th birthday at Kaaterskill Falls became the subject for a series of pieces.

The photograph is just the memory of a place, the starting point for a scratchwork. The image is printed on backlit film. I draw by removing the photo emulsion with scratch nibs, steel wool, and solvents. These lines of removal are lit from behind. On a small scale these pieces become lightboxes; on an architectural scale they are lit from behind with a bank of fluorescent lights.

I let light reveal an alternate reality by scratching off the emulsion on backlit film. My fictional forms include human elements, extreme weather, architectural phantoms, energy fields, both utopic and dystopic imagery—all of which are revealed by scratched lines of removal allowing the light in to alter the otherwise postcard-perfect scene.