Artist Story: Nate Larson

Nate Larson

The 2007 CAAP grant helped ease the financial burden associated with framing images from my series entitled “Kirlian Photographs." Some images were exhibited in Chicago from October 19 - November 24 at the Packer Schopf Gallery in the West loop. A Kirlian photograph of “Olive Loaf” was also be on exhibit at the Hyde Park Art Center from October 6 - 21 and offered in the benefit auction on October 20th.

The “Kirlian Photographs” series are photographs using Kirlian Photography, a process pioneered by the Russian-born inventor, Semyon Kirlian in 1939. The process uses electricity rather than light to make contact images on photographic media. It works by illuminating the electrical field around an object, which is recorded as multicolored emanations by the photographic film or paper.

Many fringe scientific researchers believe these images to reveal the “biofield” or “aura” of the subject, which they think gives physical form to the etheric body. Many believe the image to be linked to the life force that surrounds each living thing. Some even use it to make health care decisions, detect deceptions or seek answers from the great beyond. The most well-known, pop-culture example of a Kirlian Photograph is an image of a glowing hand featured in the opening title sequence for the television show “The X-Files.”

Fascinated by these ideas and photographic documents of the phenomenon, I embarked on my own journey by building a Kirlian device. My device is handmade and channels 135 volts through a discharge plate to make an impression of an object placed on the plate. The device is intended as both a functional and sculptural object and also becomes an artist book structure with a special compartment containing bound collections of images.

My Kirlian Device was made during the “Babel, Babble, Rabble: On Language and Art” group residency at the Banff Centre in Alberta in the summer of 2006. My residency was supported with a fellowship from the Banff Centre and a special assistance grant from the Illinois Arts Council.

Upon completion of the device, I solicited colleagues to submit objects of personal significance to be tested; I was curious about how the level of significance would manifest itself in the recorded aura. I received a wide range of objects, including wedding rings, a mahjong tile, bracelets, collected coral souvenirs, photographic portraits, a petrified whale eardrum, a crucifix, and a yarmulke. My images are made by electrifying the object directly on top of color photographic paper in the darkroom. Each image is a product of the electrical process and each image is presented “straight” without any additional manipulation. The results vary widely and one final image is selected from the myriad of test images.

After completing the initial series, I was invited by curator Colette Copeland to make a second series around the theme of death for the exhibition “Death Bizarre” at the Center for Photography at Woodstock in New York. For that exhibition, I made new images from recently deceased small animals, including a preying mantis, earthworm, and goldfish, among others.

I am currently working on a third series, which examines the nature of food that we use as sustenance for our bodies. The images include both healthy food, such as bananas, apples, pears and peppers; and also common junk foods, such as Twinkies, doughnuts, Egg McMuffins, and Wonder Bread. By examining and analyzing the food we choose to ingest into our bodies, I hope to gain insight into our methods of sustenance and how it influences contemporary American culture.

This is the third CAAP grant that I have received and each has been instrumental in enabling me to continue creating new projects. I have also been fortunate to receive three special assistance grants and an individual artist finalist award in Photography from the Illinois Arts Council. My projects have also received grant support from the Ultimate Eye Foundation, Visual Studies Workshop and the Banff Centre.

Each has been financially helpful but also has built my confidence in the recognition of the importance of the work. To have outside groups commit support has reinforced that my ideas matter and to keep pushing the work as far as it will go.

Nate Larson is a Chicago-based artist and photographer. His photographic work has been widely exhibited across the US and featured internationally in exhibitions in Canada, Greece, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and the UK. His work has been written about in numerous publications, including notably The New York Times. His photography and artist books are included in the collections of the Center for Photography at Woodstock, the Banff Centre in Alberta, the Midwest Photographers Project Collection at the Museum of Contemporary Photography Chicago, and McHenry County College, among others.

His artwork has received grant support from the Ultimate Eye Foundation, Visual Studies Workshop, the Banff Centre, the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency. Larson earned an MFA from Ohio State University in 2002 and a BA from Purdue University in 2000. More information and images are available at www.natelarson.com