Soul Stealer

A few years ago, I was searching through the National Archives of the United States of America. I came across a few photographs that stunned me. They were shots taken of the men who had assassinated President Abraham Lincoln. The photographs gave a feeling that I had never seen in modern photography. I knew the moment I saw them that I needed to learn the process. I has taken me almost 2 years. I have traveled around the world, studied with men who keep the art alive and I have quietly and patiently searched the old districts of cities like Paris, in the shops and even apartments of collectors and dealers of very old lenses and pieces of glass trying to find something special to give me a certain look for my work. The process is called wet plate and was used in the mid nineteenth century. I prepare all of my own emulsions from raw ingredients like ether, cyanide and silver. The plate that I make is a one of a kind piece of art which was actually sitting in front of the subject photographed. Unlike modern photography, nothing commercial has been used in the process and the image on the plate was actually stimulated by the light reflected from the body of the girl I have placed in front of my 150 year old lens. My camera is made of wood. During the shooting of this project it fell and was broken. I fixed the camera with tape and continued. Such is the way of this photography. It is fiercely independent and self sufficient. I can also say that it is very personal. I have shared my emulsions with a friend in Moscow who has very different results, I think that a bit of ourselves are imbued in the images as a result of the close interaction with the making of the image. My hands and feet are often black, stained from the silver which has oxidized on my skin during the making of the images. Sometimes, drunk from the ether floating in my darkroom and in a creative crisis or frenzy, I will mark myself with crude black lines or splashes of silver. Working in this medium has become as much of a ritual and habit of creation as it is a process of art and imagery.

This is my second exhibition here at Gallerie. This time I have purposely and totally traded in glamour for brutality and the sublime. I feel that Moscow has matured even in the brief time I’ve been here. In the main room hang the “Titans.” In Greek myth, they, with white painted faces, stole the baby Dionysus from his crib and slaughtered him in the first act of death and rebirth which is played out every year in the reaping and sowing of all things harvested. This brutality necessary for life seemed an appropriate theme for challenging the audience. My Mother, a country western singer, made sure that while growing up my life was surrounded with images and lore of the old American West. One such Indian legend told of photography stealing souls. I have looked at many photographs of old Indians and thought about a little piece of their soul trapped in the metal or glass of the photograph. I am working to look deeper in to my subjects and steal something, be it a feeling, a memory, a solitude or some buried ancient emotion. In one way you might think of me as a thief, but unlike other thieves, my victim are always willing.

Bart Dorsa

2008