Cathy Cone
There Was Once…
November 2- January 8
Hand Painted Photographs
My grandmother raised me. She was born with a large birthmark in the shape of a fish that covered her chin and neck. She referred to it as her purple stain. When I was young she would often tell me the story of how it happened repeatedly throughout my childhood. She told me her mother cut her finger cleaning fish when she was pregnant with her. Her mother put her finger up to her mouth immediately to stop the bleeding and according to my grandmother,“marked her”.
Her mother died as a result of my grandmother’s birth several weeks later. Had she explained it any other way I would be a very different person today. I saw a beautiful pattern imbued with magic not an imperfection. My grandmother suffered through stares and pointing fingers often as I was holding her hand. These kinds of folk stories and explanations were part of my childhood and nurtured my imagination. They held a transformative power as a kind of magical soul medicine.
The composition is essentially a duet where both mediums are of equal importance. I’m interested in the translation of these found tintypes by reanimating or resuscitating the portrait. I think of the portraits as time travelers while painting late night seances. With the help of technology, the scanned tintypes often lead to new clues perceptually. It provides a field for painting and mark making. Perhaps they’re tarot cards from outer space. It’s my way of re-touching history.
I begin by scanning tintypes that I started collecting in the late seventies. The printed photograph then becomes a contemplative ground for painting. They are independent of each other physically, historically and on many other levels. The painted photograph essentially is a duet in which two mediums may contribute towards a whole. The integrity of both exists simultaneously in a shared physicality through and on the photographic print.
“There Was Once”
I began by contemplating the temporary nature of things in choosing a title for this exhibition.
The images are layered histories of memories reassembled from a completely intuitive place.
I’m looking at my inner story as to connect and transform. I’m interested in the inquiry of how different mediums converge in a translation of the work.
I try to let the work guide me through an infinite loop of constructing and deconstructing. In a nutshell, it's a transformation station.
I like personal stories and this is mine.
Several years ago the farm up the road that had several horses. I had
practice of walking there each day and making images of an old horse that wasn’t long for this world. One day the owner came out and and ask why I was spending so much
time photographing her ugliest horse when she had these other gorgeous mares. I answered, “because this one is magic.”
