John Chiara
American, 1971-
Levee Road: Burkes: State Line, 2014
image on Ilfochrome paper, unique photograph
33 1/2 × 27 3/4 in.
Museum Purchase with funds provided by The Dana & Albert R. Broccoli Charitable Foundation
2018.21.1
“When I’m out shooting, I directly expose the paper, dodge, burn, and filter the light as if I were working in the darkroom. I have been working with this intuitive process for about twenty years now. Often, I work from the inside of a large camera obscura to expose photographic paper up to 50-by-80 inches. I then develop the image using a section of capped PVC pipe filled with chemistry and then roll the tube across the studio floor to process the photograph.” - John Chiara
COMMENTS
Bay Area photographer John Chiara captures cityscapes and landscapes in a process that is part photography and part event, creating one-of-a-kind photographs in a variety of hand-built cameras. The largest of these cameras is a 50 x 80-inch field camera transported by the artist on the bed of a flatbed trailer. Once a location is selected, Chiara physically enters the camera, manipulating positive color photographic paper in near total darkness, using his hands to burn and dodge the image. The resulting landscapes are evocative and layered, retaining traces of Chiara’s innovative technique—irregular edges, glimmers of the translucent tape used to affix the paper to the back wall of his trailer. With Mississippi, John has captured the sensuous setting of the Mississippi Delta in a series of photographs taken over an 18-month period in 2013-14. These introspective and unique prints emulate the hazy sluggishness of a Southern summer, their sun-scorched slow exposures punctuated by streaks of brilliant color and ethereal impressions of the places they interpret.
https://www.jacksonfineart.com/exhibitions/148-john-chiara-mississippi/
There are worlds within worlds in Coahoma County, writes artist John Chiara. It is a place with a strong oral tradition where the locals have a deep historical and cultural knowledge of the region. It is the birthplace of the Delta Blues. It is a landscape enlivened by a photographic collective memory, fed by nearly two centuries of photographers working their magic and being changed by the magic of the land in return.
Over the period of one year, San Francisco based artist John Chiara made numerous trips to Coahoma County, Mississippi, located in the town of Clarksdale. He put down temporary roots, ultimately spending several months, ten days at a time, immersed in the culture and getting to know the land. The photographs made during this time showcase the rich quality of the Mississippi earth with subtle notes of local history—all rendered in exquisite detail. The resulting prints retain poetic traces of noise and residue from the photographic event and the final images are haunting, lush, and characterized by an exceptional luminosity consistent with the quality of light Chiara is intent on capturing.
https://www.artsy.net/show/rosegallery-john-chiara-mississippi#!
SBMA CURATORIAL LABELS
Born in and based out of San Francisco, photographer John Chiara works out of a flatbed trailer retrofitted as a giant camera obscura (darkroom). To create his largescale works, he cuts sheets of sensitized color photographic paper in the dark and tapes them opposite a pinhole, exposing them to the scene outside. This negative-free process allows him to produce unique images up to 50 x 80 inches in scale that bear the direct visual impression of his chosen landscape.
Fundamentally not digital in any form, Chiara’s images are rendered in a moodily imprecise palette that captures the quality of light found in each of his locales. Despite working mostly in California, Chiara has also made trips to Coahoma County in the Mississippi Delta. This hazy, sun-scorched, and evocative photograph comes from his “Mississippi” series, and is indicative of Chiara’s personal immersion into the region’s culture and landscape.
- A Brilliant Spectrum, 2019