Diana Duncan Holmes presents a body of photo-based work in her solo exhibition Movement, Chance, Light at the Alice F. and Harris K. Weston Art Gallery opening on December 17 and continuing through February 27^th, 2011. Holmes’ work falls squarely within the contemporary mode of art-making in which traditional media are used in innovative ways. In this case, digital photographic methods are employed to create a series of carefully formed two dimensional works which bear little resemblance to photographic pictures in which a subject is described in a specific way through the mechanical transformations inherent to the camera.

Holmes departs from traditional photographic practices throughout her process of making and presenting this body of work. Her highly stylized use of the camera, digital postproduction tools, printing processes and unique forms of presentation all vary from traditional fine art photography in which the world is reduced into precious two dimensional objects framed and hung on the gallery wall.

The “images” here were created by shooting with the camera in close proximity to a number of simple surfaces and objects including arranged journal pages, a rusty piece of metal, horsehair and corrugated boxes among others. These subjects lose all traces of identity by the time Holmes pushes their form into abstract shapes and colors through a series of digital postproduction experiments. The artist uses digital imaging software to reduce the traditional photographic qualities of her images . . . detail, selective focus and careful tonal rendering . . . into two dimensional works which could just as easily be watercolors or charcoal drawings as photographs. Photographic postproduction methods which are usually considered to produce unwanted results such as the loss of detail and tonal separation in highlights and shadows are used here as an artistic tool to produce series of highly suggestive works which dwell more on the universal than the specific, on ideas formed outside of any reference to representation of the real world.

About half of the works presented in the show are printed, mounted and hung as series of multiple panels and the remainder are works composed of a single mounted or framed image. Of the works presented in multiple sections, abstract #3 (journal pages) is the largest, consisting of 12 individual panels hung in a grid which itself measures 60 by 120 inches. This work is typical of the other series of multiple panels in the show in its abstract rendering of a simple object, in this case, a side view of pages from a journal which has been slightly opened to create a rhythmic arrangement of white lines and dark empty spaces between them. Any trace of a journal itself, the binding, writing, page color or texture and any physical setting for the object have been completely omitted. Without the descriptive information contained within the title of the work, there would be no means to identify the object in front of Holmes’ camera. This work makes inventive use of the slim partitions between each individual panel in the grid, incorporating the standard white gallery walls as a subtle grid of rigorous vertical and horizontal white lines which beautifully offset the repeating diagonals formed by the arranged journal pages. This combination results in a unique and successful synergy between art object and gallery. Other similar works in the show including abstract #30 (bamboo), abstract #20 (rust), abstract #1 (corrugation) and abstract #7 (horsehair) repeat many of the successful elements of abstract #3 (journal pages) in a more scaled down version and with slightly less success in using the gallery space itself in a meaningful way.