Light in Purse

2012 - 2018

Every Day - Ongoing, Los Angeles, Ca

2018



                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Light in Purse was an ongoing project from 2012 to January 2018. This series results from placing light-sensitive photo paper in my purse for one day. Besides possible light exposures, the paper in my bag is subject to bending and folding, thus leaving an additional mark on the paper. What Light in Purse ultimately represents is 'a way of seeing.' This work explores the question of photography as picture-making and photography as object-making. It opposes a digital file that can be viewed on a screen but is not a physical object anymore.

Gallery 307, University of Georgia

2016



Lunchtime Gallery Talk: Christina Price Washington & Nancy Floyd




Portfolio Show at the Atlanta Photography Group 

 

2016

                                                                                                         
This exhibition was curated by Lisa Sutcliffe, who was the curator of photography at the Milwaukee Art Museum 







The Photograms of Christina Price Washington

Christina Price Washington—who has work in Suburbia, currently on view Hagedorn Foundation Gallery—is concurrently working on a different set of images that deal her “mistrust of the lens.” Christina places a piece of light sensitive photographic paper into her purse everyday, and allows her actions, objects and own touch create light-based compositions on the paper. Motivated in part by questions about the value and uniqueness of photographs, Washington said that the resulting photograms are imitating the objects in her purse.  Her process has an unusual anti-indexical relationship to the resulting composition—these works are very abstract and simultaneously feel both intimate and sterile.  Her unique photograms intersect with works by László Moholy-Nagy—or more recently, those of Walead Besthy. And while best seen in person, she has scanned them for easy viewing.





In Christina Price Washington’s series Light in Purse, a piece of photographic paper becomes a visual logbook of her movements and a day’s activities. By placing the light-sensitive paper inside the bag, each instance of her opening her bag is automatically recorded as outside light filters in and strikes the paper, which results in the monochromatic forms once the print is developed in the darkroom. The paper in the bag also naturally becomes bent and folded as the day goes on, adding a weathered texture that complements the abstract forms of the exposed surface.