Playtime
Photography by Sam Montelbetti
Opening Reception June 14, 5-8 pm
Show runs to June 26
“Playtime” approaches Photography as an additive medium, and as a site for sculptural and instinctive activity.
These pictures begin in the colour darkroom, where I make colour photograms (any process of making a photograph with no camera), using photographic paper, colour filters and light. I bring these prints to a studio, where I make in camera multiple exposure photographs of them, accentuating their physicality for the camera while their colours and forms interact inside of it.
Both the studio and the darkroom are used to explore spaces of instincts, intuition and improvisation. To me, photographs are created through a relationship between anapparatus (or instrument) and a practitioner (or player) whose various decisions and actions largely affect the outcome of the photograph. The spaces I work in stem from a curiosity towardsthis form picture making; “What would this gesture or action look like?” is a common question within my practice as a whole.
I came to photography through a love of music, and my initial relation to this additive activity was the track by track layering process of recorded music. Also inspired by the sonic environments created by full albums, I’m interested in the affection of a photograph and in making photographic worlds for viewers to get lost in. Hopefully, they find something there too.
