"Anonymous" by John Hesketh
Anonymous
John Hesketh
Media: Platinum on Hahnemühle paper
Size: 11" x 15"
Price: $750
TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS:
This photograph is a platinum-palladium print using a 11”x15” Hahnemühle paper. A small 3-inch flashlight is taped to the end of a stick, forming a “T” shape. During the extended exposure, I step in front of the camera, creating a light trail across the miniature mountain range of the stucco. The light is neither directly aimed at the camera nor the stucco itself. Instead, the side of the flashlight is pressed against the wall, allowing the light to scrape across its texture. This technique highlights the unique texture of the stucco, which is characteristic of our Cinderella house, built in 1956, in Southern California.
ARTIST STATEMENT:
Presence of Absence
She was editing her first novel while taking chemo. Our personal lives had become very small between the brain fog and the rewrites. She inspired me to explore as many worlds of color as I could find in a single stucco wall of the house. Our conversations, as artists, shifted between the success of her book and exploring my images that would not blend with color.
After her passing, I returned to the wall to finish our conversation. The images we had talked about became my passage of grief. A meditation on the presence of her absence. The project spoke without color, far from its original intent. These black and white images coalesced into a language of light to find my way back.
BIO:
John Hesketh (b. 1955) is an artist based in Laguna Niguel, California. Growing up, he was immersed in and learned photography growing up in the commercial photography studio his family opened on the day he was born. Interested in the improvisational narrative of the extended moment, John uses multiple and long exposures, often working in front of the camera to perform with light. His work is a personal embrace of family, community, and rituals of belonging.
