Spotlight on Greg Sand
Shared Experience
Greg Sand’s artistic practice is concerned with memory, the passage of time and mortality; but also the photograph’s role in shaping our experience of loss. He states, “photography’s unique ability to capture a fleeting moment allows it to expose the temporality of life”. With this in mind, the artist uses photographs – found, salvaged, gathered and eventually reconfigured – captured by (and featuring) the long since deceased. Using fragments of the past, perhaps unseen for decades, Sand constructs new realities, bringing together lives which might never have intersected in the real world.
Chronicle: Passing (detail)
Chronicle: Passing (6,393 Per Hour) 2017 | Collage of found photographs | 46.5” x 34.5”
Chronicle: Passing (detail)
I have recently started creating grid-based collages by recycling found photographs as the raw materials. This body of work began because I wanted to find a visual representation of the approximately 6,393 deaths that occur every hour in the world. So I gathered photos from eBay, local antique stores, and flea markets to amass the 6,393 faces required to make the piece Chronicle: Passing (6,393 Per Hour). As I sorted through my giant assortment of photos, I noticed other elements (shadows, hands, feet) that I thought would be interesting in this format. So, I continued searching for and gathering a variety of imagery to construct these repurposed amalgamations.
Notice II (2020) | Collage of found photographs | 4” x 9”
I use 1/2 and 1 inch punches to cut out squares of the discarded and lost photographs that I then arrange in a grid. I make adjustments as I go to make the composition more visually pleasing before I glue it down. I’m intrigued by the interactions of the various textures, values, and colours that emerge. I find my eye bouncing around from light to dark, from matte to glossy, from bright to dull, from rough to smooth. The pieces become like pixelated masses from a distance that require getting very close to discover each image individually.
Loss is present in each of these works – most blatantly in images of funerary flowers and disembodied shadows. The source photos I use often have an engrained sense of history and sadness. But many of these pieces also speak to me about the fragmentation of memories. When recalling our childhood, we may remember the shoes our father always wore or the way our mother held her hands: a part represents the whole. Photographs function in a similar manner. They do not show a whole person or an entire life, but instead capture a single moment. These keepsakes help determine some of the pieces of memory that stick with us.
Surface 2020 | Collage of found photographs | 5” x 8.5”
Cover 2020 | Collage of found photographs | 5” x 8.5”
The notion of shared experience also appears in pieces like Cover and Surface. A sky and body of water, constructed from many people’s photographic documentation of nature, which we all share and experience. Works such as Notice II and Inscription I explore the marks we as humans leave on the world. The writings and recordings of our own existence on the backs of photographs, the streets and buildings we live alongside, and the signs we use for communication all represent some of the things we leave behind and the ways we alter the world.
Inscription I (2020) | Collage of found photographs | 12.5” x 12.5”
Greg Sand is an artist who explores the issues of time and death. He produces work that addresses the nature of photography and its role in defining reality. Sand received his BFA in Photography from Austin Peay State University in 2008. He has received recognition from many jurors, including Chicago art dealer Catherine Edelman, Guggenheim Assistant Curator Ylinka Barotto, and acclaimed artists Shana and Robert ParkeHarrison. Sand currently produces work in Clarksville, Tennessee, and exhibits across the United States.
All images & text above © Greg Sand | Produced for A La Luz, 2021 | Please do not re-publish any of the above without prior written consent
