Invisible Statues

First and foremost, if you have any information, please contact local authorities or PA crimestoppers:  https://www.crimewatchpa.com/crimestoppers/316

The prints represent the last landscape my neighbours may have seen during their death (homicide).  Two murders were 426 steps away from my home and the rest were less than one mile.  Each print is titled with the name of the murder victim, including their year of birth and year of death.  The first print (Welcome to North Braddock) is titled with a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."  The last photo is an attempt of a close up to get some of the detail(s) of where the print folded back on itself (a veil type of effect like in mordancage).  There are a few pictures of the home made pinhole camera on a previous blog post that I used and built from things I found in my basement. There are also pictures on a previous blog post of the artist statements of which I designed and hand silk screened.  
     

Invisible Statues

Gravity intersects with mortality.  Time is marked when a murderer meets their victim, each second held in place by magnetism.  You can see their silhouettes, if you walk slow enough.  Each photo is an invisible portrait, each shares the last landscape another human being may have seen, each landscape captures two invisible statues, absorbed in infinite decay, stillness without pause, invisibility.

Baptism

Each print represents the death of a neighbour.  The prints were washed for five days. I gently removed each print from the water, the silver pulled away from the print, like skin from bone, and the fragile perspective of the print changed, controlled annihilation and divine intervention, the lines remind me of migraines, I have never died before, I know what it feels like to be invisible.  

Amelia Roman, homicide, open case

b1923 d2016

Desmond Nowlin, homicide, open case

b1994 d2015

Vernon Rogers, homicide, open case

b1998 d2014

Derrail Roilton, homicide, open case

b1989 d2013

Jamal Aki Holyfield, homicide, open case

b1991 d2009

Anthony Tamsula, homicide, open case

b1984 d2009

Taken with home made pinhole 4X5 camera. Ilford FP4 Plus 125. F228 1 to 4 seconds. Developed D76 11 minutes and fixed for 7 minutes. Ilford 8X10 MGFB Classic Matte. Saunders, using a 135mm lens, f11 for 12 to 14 seconds with an Ilford 2 filter, developed 90 seconds, stop 10 seconds and fixed for 3 minutes. Washed print facing downward (non-running water) in developing tray for 5 days.