Triple Fire (2024)
“Triple Fire” was born of an evening spent by the flames, completely absorbed in their hypnotic dance. I felt compelled to capture those fleeting moments when thoughts dissolve in fire‑gazing. I literally sculpted the flames by shifting logs to create specific forms, then captured the precise instant when the fire seemed to possess its own will, its own voice.
This work belongs to my period of experimentation in Orford, where the element of fire recalled Gaston Bachelard’s writings in The Psychoanalysis of Fire: “Fire suggests the desire to change, to rush time, to carry all life to its end, to its beyond.” This idea of alchemical transformation inhabits me — how one element can simultaneously create and destroy, illuminate and consume. This duality resonates with my current artistic quest.
Medium: Photography
Technique: Photo, digital modification, acrylic printing and fire sculpting
Dimensions (per piece): 10 × 8 × 0.25 inches
Original photographs used before alterations.
Digitally altering the photograph, then printing on acrylic, finally transforming it physically with the heat of a torch, perfectly embodies my search for a dialogue between representation and materiality. Heat‑formed bubbles scatter light uniquely, creating halos that vary with viewing angle and lighting. This metamorphosis of the support by fire — the very element represented — creates a fascinating conceptual loop. The heated, warped edges add a sculptural dimension that transcends mere image and becomes a sensory experience. This fusion between photographic image and physical transformation represents the essence of my current approach, where the work never exists as a static object but as a perceptual experience in perpetual evolution.