Aspen Mays
Aspen Mays, Dodge 001, Silver Gelatin Photogram, 2012
Aspen Mays, Dodge 004, Silver Gelatin Photogram, 2012
Aspen Mays, Dodge 005, Silver Gelatin Photogram, 2012
Aspen Mays, Dodge 008, Silver Gelatin Photogram, 2012
Aspen Mays, Dodge 010, Silver Gelatin Photogram, 2012
Aspen Mays, Dodge Collection I, Silver Gelatin Photogram, 2013
Aspen Mays, Burn Collection I, Silver Gelatin Photogram, 2013
These images are all silver gelatin photograms made using my collection (unending) of dodging and burning tools found in analog darkrooms. The only governing principle behind this collection is that I have not made any of the tools myself. They have all been found or given to me.
Dodging and burning tools are typically made from anything at hand: cardboard from boxes of photo paper, caps from rolls of film, pencils, even the tongs from trays of chemistry. These tools typically are not labored over; they are immediate, crude and functional. They are often constructed to aid in the making of a single, particular print, and when that print is made, the tools are usually left behind for someone else to use.
Aspen Mays was raised in Charleston, SC. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2009. Her solo exhibitions include Every leaf on a tree at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; Sun Ruins at Golden Gallery,New York; and Ships that Pass in the Night at the Center for Ongoing Projects and Research (COR&P) in Columbus, OH. Mays was a 2009-2010 Fulbright Fellow in Santiago, Chile, where she spent time with astrophysicists using the world’s most advanced telescopes to look at the sky. Mays lives and works in Los Angeles, CA and Columbus, OH where she is an Assistant Professor of Art at Ohio State University.
