Joseph Minek was a graduate student at VCUarts last year, and I am very grateful to have known him. His work includes various chemical and physical destruction of an already existing photograph. Most of his pieces are metallic chromogenic prints (which is the name of a process where silver image of each layer is first developed and there are layered dyes throughout the print, the process subsequently forms dyes only in those areas where silver is present). His work is labor intensive and very different from anything I have ever seen. Minek has taken the photography aspect out of the image, and left more of a sculpture and print making theme into it.
Joseph Minek is very interested in the way that photographic material can be deconstructed and then reconstructed back again. He is interest in the chemical process that makes up an image. He calls his breaking down of its material structure his "experiments", which is only fitting due to all the scientific processes he goes through. He pays homage to the first inventors of photographs by breaking down the process they discovered so many years ago. Minek is all about two specific things: the process and the production. Within trying to avoid "happy accidents" Minek was able to produce these amazing and in-depth destruction/reconstruction pieces that were so successful that he got his thesis approved just last year. Nice job Joe!
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