White Balance                                  Artist Statement



Photography maintains the construction of race and class.

With White Balance, I attached the complicated history of wealth in the south with the history of photography.

White Balance started as site-specific work. In Atlanta, I looked to physical and historical markers of an exhibition space that once belonged to the affluent heirs to cotton futures, banking, and real estate in the early 19th century. Coinciding with the history of photography, it allowed for complex layering. I linked the white balance and exposure value in a camera with the complicated wealth of the exhibition space.

Photographs referencing the white balance of the color space and exposure value in the camera are abstract and arranged according to the light in the space. I combine the camera algorithm determining a white balance with Ansel Adams' Zone System and exposure values by lifting the zone system example from print matter patented by Fox Talbot as halftone print.

Photographs that point to the history and wealth of the estate reference cotton and silver utilizing old and new printing techniques. Antique photography paper from the early 20th century with aged and latent silver halide crystals as the binder of photography and prosperity shows that photography still maintains the construction of race and wealth.

Exhibition: Swan Coach House Gallery, Atlanta, Ga, 2019