Jeffrey D. MATHIAS

 

I consider myself a hunter gatherer when involving the creation of photographs.  My objective and interest is to create an image from my personal learning and discovery keeping true to the influences so as to honestly discover and not manipulate.  I have worked many years studying the interrelationships of environing space and culture, placing discoveries into photographic images. 

In order to better convey the environmental spaces, the folding screen format was utilized.  Out of the experience gained through the Folding Screen Work emerged the Folded Axis Work which is being utilized to learn and discover the construct of nature.

Born in Chicopee, Massachusetts in 1951, and after a childhood in Akron Ohio, I received a B.S. degree from the Rochester Institute of Technology and worked as a research physicist for 11 years.  In 1985 and 1986 platinum palladium printmaking and negative building was studied under the instruction of Sal Lopes, a master photographer and photographic printmaker.  Always having a strong interest in photography, the discipline was pursued full-time but for some environmental activism from 1993 to 1998. 

Milestones include: first Pt/Pd print in 1986; first custom built enlarged negative in 1986;  first folding screen in 1989;  first Pt/Pd print on fabric in 1990.

 

Folded Axis Work

The concept of Folded Axis Work was discovered in August 1999.  It evolved from the Folding Screen Work with a variation on the use of the folding axis.  Folding screens have been made by the photographer since 1989.  Where a folding screen has a carefully selected axis on which adjacent panels are allowed to fold on their common edge, the Folded Axis Work consists of a single panel which has the axis placed into the middle of the panel and with the image then rotated so as to fold onto itself.  The axis is critical and its discovery is the stimulus to making the photograph.
The Folded Axis is physically accomplished by recording the image using two pieces of film at two moments.  After processing, the two films are placed emulsion to emulsion and contacted printed with a platinum palladium coating to produce the Folded Axis image.
The resulting image reveals natural symmetries.  However, there is not a simple mirror image.  Values are added and subtracted as the densities from two negatives are combined.  The final values are a combination of the actions of the addition light as with photography and the subtraction of light as with painting.  Because the two films are exposed one at a time, the symmetries may be countered with variations in time such as light, wind, and water or earth movement.  The inherent symmetries are powerful and difficult to subdue, but have the advantage that they can stimulate thought in the viewer.
The likely reason that anthropomorphic forms emerge from the images is a ramification of the symmetry formed by the fold.  Consider that my objective is not to create these forms, rather to study the reasons for why these forms are produced.  Also consider that the observer of the image is provoked into thinking.  It is expected that the images may invoke thought similar to Rorschach Ink Blot patterns, stimulating the observer to consider and reconsider the construct of nature.
Is nature limited to only that which is at first apparent?  Or as the symmetrical helixes of the human genome can reveal a wealth of information as to the person, can these symmetries divulge new understanding as to the construct of nature?

Examples of work by Jeffrey Mathias on his website:

<http://home.att.net/~jeffrey.d.mathias/portfolios.htm>
 

Selected exhibits

Atelier pH7, Brussels, Belgium:  June, 2001. Folded Axis Work
   
"Contemporary Platinum Prints and Photographers ". Kent School of Art Gallery, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio: April, 1993

"25x25 #11 Independence". The Print Club, Philadelphia, Penn.: July 1992

"The American City: Paintings, Prints, Drawings, and Photographs from the Permanent Collection. Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Mass.: January - March 1991
 
"Exposing the Southwest". Craftsmen's Cooperative Gallery, Heritage Square, Phoenix, Ariz.: April 1990

"Arizona Photographers: The Snell & Wilmer Collection". Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, Ariz.: March - April 1990 (two-year traveling exhibition)
 
"The Durango Photographic Salon".Durango Arts Center, Durango, Colo.: July 1989 (plus traveling exhibition)
 
"The Factory: A Reconsideration". Laura Knott Gallery, Bradford College, Bradford, Mass.: October - November 1988
 
"Ironworks '88". Santa Fe Center for Photography, Santa Fe, N.M.: July - September 1988
 
"Merrimack - Life of a River". Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Mass.: Spring 1988
 
 "Parks and Monuments". Arizona State University Gammage Center Exhibition Lobby, Tempe, Ariz.: April - May 1988
 
"The Casa Grande Ruins". Casa Grande Ruins National Monument Visitors' Center, Coolidge, Ariz.: Fall 1987 - Spring 1988

"Images of Greater Lawrence". Andover Gallery, Andover, Mass.: Winter 1987
 
"The Lawrence Mills". Lawrence Heritage State Park Visitors' Center, Lawrence, Mass.: September - October 1986

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