Something in the Water: The Color of Decay in Matthew Brandt's Photographs

For his series Lakes and Reservoirs (2011-2014) and Waterfalls (2013-2016), Matthew Brandt processed and soaked large-scale chromogenic prints in water collected from landscapes he photographed. Photographic chemicals reacted with the water to degrade the print according to the composition of the sample’s particles and pollutants yielding unique prints in the sense that each is not reproducible. The resultant marks erase and replace areas of the represented landscape with colorful splashes, faded textures, and sublimely deformed emulsion, sometimes to the point beyond recognition. Combining representation and abstraction, the images’ watery surfaces foreground both the materiality of photography and the represented environments: the deterioration of the photographs’ flat surfaces contradicts the illusionistic spaces of the represented landscapes. Rather than operating as an optical window to another time and place, surfaces are rendered conspicuous by their own chemical deterioration. These photographs are of lakes and reservoirs in a double sense by representing a view of the location and its chemical composition, but they are also about environmental pollution, diminishing water supplies, and the gradual disappearance of wet chemical processes in photography. The bodies of water Brandt photographed and the photographic process he used to create their images are both endangered. By deliberately interrupting the fixing process and embracing photographic decay, Brandt’s images are able chemically and optically to embody environments and their destruction. The fragility of photographic materiality—specifically, the wet chemical process of chromogenic printing—becomes a metaphor for both the landscapes they represent and their own historical disappearance as a medium.