The Surface of an Image

Collectively, we understand that taking a photograph can be as simple as “point and shoot.” Some artists take photos, but Meganelizabeth Diamond builds them. Her experimental approach plays with alternative ways of image-building by blending analogue and digital photographic processes.

Diamond’s studio practice integrates physical and online worlds. The images in her growing photo collection of plant life and landscapes are captured during walks or mined from the web. She may begin with a film photograph that is scanned, but her transformative process might see this initial image photoshopped, printed, collaged, rephotographed in nature, rescanned, and combined with more images. At times she may include a three-dimensional scan of an object, pointing to the material interplay between the digital image and the printed one; or she may explore floral forms with lumen prints, a nineteenth-century technique that harnesses the sun instead of a camera to produce an image on light-sensitive photo paper. Within each image, time is compressed as the artist fuses together historical and contemporary photographic methods. Diamond produces painterly and experiential work that teeters between figuration and abstraction, the organic and artificial. All of these elements aim to expand our definition of landscape photography and our ideas surrounding how images can be made.

The Canada Line Art Program – InTransit BC is presented by Wesgroup Properties

Presented in partnership with the Canada Line Public Art Project – InTransit BC