The Immediate Image

APRIL 23 – JULY 16, 2022

The photographers using sublimation onto metal, produce beautiful, luminous photographs. This process creates high-definition, visually stunning archival and fade-resistant images. This photo printing process creates prints that present the look of analog photography while relying on new standards for image printing using innovative technology. Freed from the limitations of paper – and the need to use protective glass or Plexi – a picture can have vivid colors and sharp definition.

Opting to use this technique of infusing dyes directly onto specially coated metal prints helps create photographs that become bold, striking images with beautiful clarity and exceptional quality. The celebrated photographers in this exhibition take advantage of the immediacy of the sublimation process.

Art has always had a close relationship with technology. The inextricable connection between the two comes naturally; as times change, so does the way we express ourselves. This evolution is most apparent in the medium of photography and its presentation, where the transformation has been dramatic. From the early days of recording a negative on treated paper to the present, where pressure and heat turn ink into gases that solidify when cooled to create a lasting image, photographs have become an essential part of our lives. Capturing and exhibiting the immediate image has become pivotal to contemporary society.

Early innovators used chemistry to discover how to “fix” an image on a surface, either paper, glass, or tin. This idea has continued throughout the history of photography in continual reinvention, ultimately showcasing the medium’s malleability to find new forms of presentation. Today, the sublimated aluminum printing method uses the world’s most essential metal to preserve some of the most iconic images captured in history. The materials used in the production of a photograph change the appearance of a picture, and sublimation can intensify the color spectrum and the definition of an image.

From daguerreotypes to photograms, film negatives to camera-less photography, photography’s linkage to science has consistently challenged the medium’s limitations, searching and providing a more versatile way to develop the medium’s visual potential. The current show highlights exceptional photographs that are expanding the boundaries of the medium by incorporating technological advancements. These unique photographs, regularly printed on paper, are now printed in the sublimated aluminum process, enhancing the resonance of their photographic work, broadening the printing capabilities within the fields of portraiture, fashion, photojournalism, and landscape photography.

The photographers using sublimation onto metal, produce beautiful, luminous photographs. This process creates high-definition, visually stunning archival and fade-resistant images. This photo printing process creates prints that present the look of analog photography while relying on new standards for image printing using innovative technology. Freed from the limitations of paper – and the need to use protective glass or Plexi – a picture can have vivid colors and sharp definition.

Opting to use this technique of infusing dyes directly onto specially coated metal prints helps create photographs that become bold, striking images with beautiful clarity and exceptional quality. The celebrated photographers in this exhibition take advantage of the immediacy of the sublimation process.