Label Text:
Starkman made these photographs on the banks of the Juniata River in central Pennsylvania while grieving the death of his mother. “Opening myself to the darkness at the edge of beauty, mourning, slow healing,” the passing flow of water recalls the effect of the mythological potion nepenthe, which banishes grief and sorrow. The images are a blur, representing a mind in sorrow, recalling passing memories that come and go, obscure in shape, as moments of clarity in the present become the past, and the future flows on.
Starkman printed the photographs himself, symbolically using his last sheets of Forte warm tone semi-matt paper, enhancing the stark simplicity of the images and underscoring the passage of time.
Tags:
mythology; nature; water; deaths; mourning; perspective Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=AC+2013.67.1-6 |
