Untitled (Queen 1, Hartland, VT)

Emerging artist Sam Falls trained as a photographer at Reed College and the International Center for Photography-Bard MFA program. After earning his MFA, he grew ambivalent toward photography, particularly the focus within the field on the apparatuses and tools of photography, which he found overly technical and ultimately alienating. Having moved to Los Angeles, he became interested in creating photographs without photographic equipment, utilizing the sun and other natural elements. First, he completed a series of large photograms using found urban materials, like tires. Through his mother, a craftsperson in Vermont, he became familiar with cold water reactive dye, a powdered pigment that can be sprinkled into water and used to dye fabric, which he then began incorporating into his work. For the series from which “Untitled (Queen 1, Hartland, VT)” is drawn, he hung bedsheets on a clothesline and placed the powder along the cord. When it rained, the powder dyed the bedsheet in unusual and asymmetrical patterns as it ran down the length of the sheet, depending on the intensity of the rain, the force of the wind, and other incidentals. The resulting images remind the artist of a shoreline with the reflected image of a landscape on the surface of a lake. By relying on nature, the artist incorporates an element of chance into his artworks and removes his own hand from their production.