Julia Sharpe
Afterimages

Julia Sharpe was one of the artists in residence in the year 2015. Her work philosophically investigated the construction of the artistic images.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Theodor Adorno writes: “Artworks are afterimages of empirical life.” My project takes this statement literally, and seeks to create a body of prints that are afterimages of reality. I want to explore what it means to make an “afterimage” of an event, person, or place. I ask, what allows something to be seen? How do we come to see a thing? What remains of a thing once it is no longer present? How do histories fade or become permanent in both the personal and cultural psyche? I am concerned both with the aesthetic questions and political implications that this project seeks to explore.

This project builds upon my previous project Dark Matter which seeks to give form to that which is unseen or immaterial. I will use Buenos Aires as source material for these afterimages, creating layered prints from negatives taken in and around the city. I will also select key readings to inform upon this exploration such as Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory as well as Roberto Bolano’s fiction.