Mining the Past brings together new works by Fort Worth-based photographers Jessica Fuentes and Raul Rodriguez. Both artists use technology to manipulate and re-present traditional film photographs in innovative ways.
Fuentes draws on a catalog of film photography taken over decades and across geographic locations. Her works are digitally combined to flatten time and space as she grapples with the nature of memory through distortion and juxtaposition The digital layering of images mimics both the aesthetic of double-exposure photography and the haziness and fallibility of memory. Her video, all things appear and disappear | todos las cosas aparecen y desaparecen, reveals part of her artistic process of layering and transparency.
Rodriguez draws from his family archive, featuring photographs from their early years in the U.S. He manipulates the photos by shifting and moving them during the scanning process. The resulting abstracted images feel as if they have been distorted through a wormhole of memory, often leaving only the artist’s hand crisp and clear in the final print. Fuentes and Rodriguez will be in the Martin McDonald Gallery from November 1 through December 28, 2024.
