Alfonso Pelaez-Rovalo
Untitled (2022)
I subjected this series of photographic prints to a deep-frying process, jumping between analog and digital methods, gaining and losing information, cropping, nesting, and recombining elements. The continuous distortion imbues the images with a dream-like illogical quality, reminiscent of Victorian spirit photography. the process uses a magnifying glass as a lens and different UV lighting sources to produce homemade cyanotypes, or sun prints.I subsequently scan the prints digitally, then process, enlarge, and re-print them onto fabric.
The prints are a bricolage of iconography from a wide array of appropriated sources—architecture books, my record collection and clothing—as well my own photographs. The amalgamation of these images (my hoarded belongings) becomes self-portraiture. Like a lot of photography, the series is voyeuristic and invasive, in that it depicts a distorted domestic space on an enlarged flat surface. This last concern is partially architectural, which adds another layer of self-portraiture: I'm also an Architecture student. My elaborate process advances and complicates these themes by incorporating happy accidents. The space in which I photograph my possessions insinuates itself into the image: my clothes or the plug of the bathtub, or instance, creep in at the margins. The captured scenes are intimate, and both reveal and conceal fragments of my own space, from people I care about and domestic details to the performance of ablutions. Additionally, the appearance and prevalence of iconic musicians in my work affirms my profound love of music and my interest in the depiction of musicians and artists—an important part of my day-to-day life.