Andrew K. Thompson - Artist Statement

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I distrust perfection, and I believe photography is poisonous. My work critiques the toxicity of the medium with a dash of absurdity to create images and objects that reflect the tumultuous world around me.

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Nothing is neutral, including the camera or photograph. They wield the bias of their user. The images and objects I make bring this idea into focus. I want the viewer to see the noxious means required to make a photograph.

 

A potpourri of artists has influenced and inspired me, but I must begin with Doug and Mike Starn and the photographs of German painter Sigmar Polke. They exposed me to a different way of using light-sensitive materials. They were not bound to the modernist thinking that dominated photography in the early 1990s when I was a young student. Through my studies, I would later draw inspiration from Betty Hahn, Thomas Barrow, Lewis Baltz, Richard Tuttle, David Benjamin Sherry's monochromes, and Reed Ghazala's mischievousness.

 

I have developed a unique practice and process that begins with a “what if” question. “What if I make a camera-shaped ice cube out of Caffenol and melt it on black and white paper?” This question started my @MeltingCameras series. From there, I allow the research, play, and the discovery process to take over. 

 

I often have a vision of California burning. These visions were the inspiration for my Chemical Landscapes portfolio. I ask myself why this became a recurring thought. I know it comes from the anxieties surrounding the ecological demise that I've witnessed throughout my life. In response to this inquiry, I sew onto analog color prints to make marks across their surface. Later, they are doused with bleach, causing light-sensitive silver crystals to slide across the photographic surface. In essence, I do to these pictures what humankind is doing to the planet.

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My hands are a large part of my process. I believe it is crucial to incorporate hand-made elements into my work because I view photography as a tool, and I believe the tool doesn’t build a house; the hand that wields the tool does. I create my artwork by hand and often with analog photographic methods, but I use digital means periodically or have objects fabricated in various materials. 

 

I am interested in “hacking,” “circuit bending,” and poking fun at the systems that make up photography. For me, destructing is a creative act, and “re-wiring” the circuits of light-sensitive materials is the ideal medium for me to communicate.