Purchased with funds from the Friends of Photography
© Matthew Brandt
This photograph calls as much attention to the artist’s creative process as to the image itself. Matthew Brandt is an experimental photographer. He shoots postcard-perfect lake views and then soaks the printed images in water from that lake. This process permanently alters the image. The tone and color of the photograph is determined by the chemical makeup of the lake water. The water’s effects on the photographic print suggest an environmental hazard. A lake that appears to be fresh and clean might be hiding pollution beneath its surface.
Brandt says he is influenced by the Hudson River School art movement of the mid 19th century. Hudson River artists often painted panoramas, or wide views, of landscape scenes. Brandt updates that tradition in this abstract work that looks more like a painting than a photograph.
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