Wander explores the relationship between lines — their moments of divergence and convergence.
I photographed cracks on the pavement and, like jigsaw pieces, arranged them to form a picture. Although in this case the composition was not predetermined, rather it grew naturally from the direction the lines tended towards.
The meaning of a drawing is changed when it is made from cracks instead of pencil. Pencil lines are pure and self-contained, whereas a photograph is a capture of some physical object existing elsewhere. Pencil is therefore continuous, but a drawing composed of photographs contains “cracks” of distance and time, seen in the variation of lighting conditions and gravel textures.
Another difference lies in the intention of the line. Pencil is a productive instrument, willfully one drags it across a surface to create a mark. Cracks, on the other hand, are destructive; they signal a deterioration. This occurs gradually as the cement contracts and expands with the changing seasons. In this way cracks are a marker of the passage of time.
Just as cracks form with time, so too do wrinkles grow across our bodies, deepening and multiplying with age. By presenting photographs of skin and cracks side by side I hope to draw attention to this relationship.
In the process of documentation I noticed a repetition of formations, most striking were those that resembled letters — A’s, Y’s and X’s. I began to imagine the cracks as a language, but its meaning is unintelligible, like the codes of nature that we can never fully grasp.
Installed at the Academy of Fine Arts Gdansk.
