Artifact

explores a narrative of transformation defined in three series —

“THE MOST PERSONAL WORK OF ALL

I asked her about the Artifact series, and she welled up with tears.

“That was so personal.

That was my horse,” she said.

I’d love to share it here but it’s not fair to not tell it properly.

Suffice to say the luminous black and white images are the ashes of her beloved horse and stones she collected during his illness.

“When he died, I realized I had picked up the stones because they were like his eyes.

All I had left were ashes and stones so that‘s what I used.

I worked obsessively on it, then put it away for six years.”

Janet Davies - Watershed Magazine, Canada

Excavation

Every being, every action and every thought has its own beginning and its own end threading within the excavation of one’s own life path.

Collectively the collection presents a planetary effect, evoking ancient human cultures and mysterious celestial constructions.

Ambiguous in scale, and sensual in tonality and texture, the stillness of the compositions renders them serenely minimalist.

We are invited to consider another sort of artifact on an intimate and human scale;

something lost, left behind and carefully buried for safekeeping and alternately exposed to reveal its existence.

“I see now I was working my way through issues of death and life.

The bones were memorials, the birds were beauty and life.

Ultimately Artifact felt like the universe to me.”

Elementals, influences, connections

Deborah has been called “skilled in the bizarre and the beautiful.” I found her a passionate communicator.

She said simply, “I’m a portrait photographer.

I do portraits of people, bones, flowers, stones and dogs.

It’s a silent communion.”

Janet Davies — Watershed Magazine, Canada