The Boy, The Lizard and The Snake (2023)
edition of 300 analog rc-prints

Short Essay:
The Notion of Expenditure originates from an excerpt from the essay by Georges Bataille, entitled“Accursed Share”.. The idea of ‘The Notion of Expenditure’ in order to create, in this case good art, we must make a lot of bad art. We must lose something in the process, and quantifiably, we lose resources, and in turn, money.

When I first began printing my negatives from my time at Calarts, I had noticed that this time of mourning and processing had created an expenditure itself. Many of these photographs, so vital to my archive now, are lost in time. It was this sheer process of loss that contributed to ‘The Notion of Expenditure’. Without these gaps in my memory, would I be creating this body of work?

So much of what has been photographed, were in actuality, not a place I wanted to be or a part of. In this case, the ‘Expenditure’ is my memory. Without the expense of losing memory to certain details and stories, I can continue to create a world for myself where my friend is still here, I am still there, and the stories aren't sad.

This ‘Notion of Expenditure’ continued when I began to print my series of negatives from this time. At the darkroom I worked in, and where I would spend twelve hours a week printing my work, I would encounter a new problem that prevented me from printing this body of work. The issue that I faced was the appearance of mysterious dark lines appearing on everyone's photographic paper who were using the darkroom.. It felt like a big conspiracy. Who is sneaking into the darkroom after hours? Who was using these mysterious chemicals? Were they doing this purposely to sabotage other students' work? Whatever the reason was, hundreds of dollars worth of my darkroom paper was ruined, as a consequence . This project felt as though every time I was making made some headway with this project, in what would either be part of my healing process, or work production, I was brought to an abrupt halt each time. The paper dryer shredded my prints from other students' misuse, and there were times, after hours spent printing, that someone would enter the darkroom and turn on all the lights, exposing all of my photographic paper. I started to understand that it would be a fight to complete this project. No part of it wanted it to be easy for me. The subsequent hours I would spend on top of those ones already planned, in an effort to salvage my work, contributed to this sense of self reflection. All of those hours in the dark, alone, lit by a red bulb and listening to mine and Joseph old playlists, enabled me to reach a different destination in my mourning process.

It all still hurts. But now, all of this excess energy and built up resentment has turned into different frustrations, more to do with logistics. When I continued to think about Bataille's ‘Notion of Expenditure’, I also started to consider ‘The Principle of Loss’. Bataille stated that in order to ‘produce sacred things’, we must also lose them. Putting it bluntly, was this time of my life, which contained the loss of a friend and the loss of who I thought I would be?. When thinking about this principle, I started to understand that this loss allowed me to gain other things. And without that ‘expenditure’ I would not be the person I am today, nor would I be equipped to deal with grief in the same way as an adult.

From the period spanning November 2022 May 2023, I produced around 400-500 darkroom prints, derived from only a few negatives that were taken during that time of my life.

I have included some examples of these darkroom prints, ones that affected my student experimentation, as well as malfunctioning equipment and light exposure.

Darkroom Notes

For you, me, and him
Installation
RC Prints
18x6 ft
2023

Selected Darkroom Collages
Dimensions Vary
2022-2023