Witness Mark - Special Edition & Unique Photogram

* To order standard edition of the book for $50 go to saintlucybooks.com *

This listing is for a signed, special edition of Witness Mark and an 10x8 inch unique photographic rubbing from the series Automatic Earth. There were only 20 of these sets made.

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Witness Mark brings together five bodies of work (made from 2013-2019) that trace an arc of experimentation and a near spiritual commitment to deep observation of the world around us; from the intricate patterns of nature to the labored and intrinsically flawed patterns made by human hands. Beginning with Rain Studies and Web Studies, photograms made outdoors at night in the darkness of the Hawaiian rainforest, McKenna coaxes analog black and white photographic materials to record evidence of broken patterns in detail beyond what is familiar to our eyes, the prisms of light inside each raindrop and the damaged architecture of a spider’s web.

McKenna’s intense physical process of embossing photographic paper into textures in the landscape is evidenced in the series Automatic Earth, which are “photographic rubbings” of the rings of trees, and Faultlines created with the ruptures, imperfections and physical scars of history written onto the landscape. Generation is a series of “photographic reliefs” made using a giant etching press in total darkness to emboss textiles into photographic paper. These objects are rich with touch, their patterns and flaws telling stories of colonialism, migration, and women’s labor and sexuality.

Klea McKenna’s photographic works have been exhibited internationally and are held in several public collections, including SFMOMA, LACMA, Getty Museum, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the US Embassy collection, The Mead Museum of Art and The Victoria and Albert Museum in London. This is her first monograph. This book was published by Saint Lucy Books and was made in collaboration with editor, Mark Alice Durant. It includes essays by Corey Keller, Leah Ollman, Vanessa Kauffman Zimmerly and and autobiographical essay by the artist.

230 Pages
Hardcover
Vellum Dust Jacket
2 Gatefolds
Texts by Corey Keller, Vanessa Kauffman Zimmerly, Leah Ollman, and Klea McKenna

Unique Photographic Rubbing (hand embossed silver gelatin photogram)
10x8 inches
From the series Automatic Earth
Signed by the artist