Elizabeth Stone | Negative / Positive

Sometimes photographers trick our eyes. Using techniques of illusion or bending our perceptions, they can even make unreal scenes into believable places. When I discover that my eyes have been fooled in this way, my reactions fall into two camps, one of disappointment, and another of delight. A tell-all explanation for the making of an illusion may simply deflate the mystery. A scene is lessened for me after the revelation, and I lose interest in the images. But in other cases, the new knowledge gives me a sense of awe for the image maker. I am delighted by this, when the prowess and the obsessions of the artist come shining through.

Elizabeth Stone’s project Negative / Positive fills me with this kind of delight. Watery landscapes and thin layers of atmospheric light wash over her frames. Her landscapes are ethereal and beautiful to behold, especially when viewed as large prints. But where were they made? Was she perched on the edge of a cold ocean, doing long exposures before the sunrise? Perhaps she was photographing from an airplane? Heavens, was she hiding out on another planet?

In fact, Stone’s landscapes are crafted from her old slides and sheets of film, meticulously cut and reassembled into tiny temporary sculptures in her slide mounts, then filled with light and rephotographed. She has taken the fragments of her past and dauntlessly transformed them into new and fictional physical places. She’s constructed a land of peace.

- Lisa



View the series here.