Interview with Jonathan Kline by Marlon Lenoble
https://jonathanklinephotography.com/
ML: I am especially interested in your photographic project Fields, in which you are examining impermanence and the ephemeral. In my own work I have been exploring similar concepts, and am wondering what it is that made you chose the process that you did?
JK: Fields actually originated in my interest in pursuing images that were at the threshold of consciousness, in that area between something and nothing. I was not interested in defining a specific figure/ground relationship, as much as suggesting timelessness, placeless-ness. This seemed contrary to the goals of most photographs, rooted as they are with an indexical relationship to their subject and moment in time. Using the large format camera seemed especially interesting due in part to its ability to highly resolve /scrutinize whatever is before it.
ML: How have you arrived at these abstract forms and conceptual ideas in your practice? How did you first become aware of and learn to use alternative processes?
JK: My own interest in alternative processes grew out of research I had been doing with a Mellon Foundation grant, replicating (or trying to) the various known methods used to create negatives on paper in the 19th century by both French and British practitioners. Specifically, the work of Edouard Baldus became a source of inspiration with his technical proficiency of the process. There was something exquisite yet almost haunting to see these negatives on sheets of fine stationary from so long ago, a feeling that vintage negatives on glass didn't possess, for me at least. Seeing the distinct trace of light rays captured chemically within the fibers of paper prompted me to make my own paper negatives using the Guillot-Saguez method.
ML: Who are your biggest influences and inspirations, whether in visual art, or in other aspects?
JK: Further influences and inspiration are the writings of Gaston Bachelard, the night experiments of August Strindberg, Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley, early liturgical choir music, and the work of Vija Celmins, Dorothea Rockburne, Agnes Martin, Fred Sandback, et al. DIA Beacon is a favorite spot.