Sarah Isabelle Tan

A flower and traces of my fingertips, digital scans of an unfixed cameraless photogram before and after being left exposed to light for two weeks, 5x7” silver gelatin fibre paper. 

The work questions the materiality of the photograph through its process—an interaction of light and chemistry, rooted in its material use of paper. And as all bodily objects, it will always be engulfed by the passage of time. The unfixed print is left to fade and sees its presence diminish, as it becomes the past. The physical print of the work remains transient and impermanent for as long as it exists. It continues changing for as long as it is exposed to light. Time slips through my fingers, as the touch of my fingers linger on its surface. 

Julius Baer Next Generation Art Prize, Still Image category (Finalist)

2021

Presented by Bank Julius Baer & Co. Ltd. and Singapore Arts Club.

Virtual Exhibition, April 30 — 30 June 2021

A Flower and Traces of My Fingertips

Digital Scans of a print on silver gelatin fibre paper

Sarah Tan’s practice recuperates the physical object-hood of the photograph, which even today is retreating ever further into obsolescence, in the face of technological advancements that have allowed for its dematerialization. Here, the pair of diminutive images were produced as a single, camera-less photogram, an early image-making process premised merely on the interaction of light and chemicals - most notably utilized by Man Ray in his so-dubbed “rayographs.” This sense of materiality was then displaced by digitally scanning the print. The work is ontologically double - both image and object, tangible yet remote, produced as a material print and recreated as digital specters, at once seizing and reversing the ephemerality of lived experience. As the artist remarks, “The work stages an encounter with a lost material presence, situating itself as photographic image in the digital age as I confront its connection to the real, a return to the pre-digital era. As an unfixed material print, it renders the state of the image inconstant and transient. Its physicality and tactility take on a new significance, now encountered in the halation of our digital screens. The work disrupts digital dominance through its process, and yet ironically parallels the sense of digital temporality through its nature.”

Julius Baer Next Generation Investment Theme: Digital Disruption