Micah Danges
WHAT WE SEE FEELS LIKE THE THING ITSELF: Photographs

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My drive to take photographs is rooted in the unpredictability of such a seemingly predictable process. I use the precision of the camera in conjunction with the limitations of its mechanics to generate a series of inspiring problems that I can solve. I know that the assumptions that I make while shooting the photograph, about how life will translate onto film, will be proven wrong after it is developed and printed. This shift compels me to slow down, study the printed image and isolate key moments of transformation. From there, I consider the surface of the print and build a material relationship with the image that celebrates its singularity.

I want to continue to explore the photograph as a flexible medium that has the ability to be both image and object, and to find meaning in that dual understanding. My practice of joining other materials to the surface of photographs comes from an interest in deconstructing photography in a way that viewers can understand. I am not interested in stepping further away from certain elements of traditional photography. I am interested in exploring how both the strengths and shortcomings of the medium can be used to support the needs of each artwork I make.

Micah Danges (b. 1979) works and resides in Philadelphia. His work hovers between image and object, pushing the limit of what a photograph can be. He uses optical distortions that create abstract scenes from everyday items and places, in a distinctive merging of materials and process. For Danges, who prints on unconventional materials like silk, acrylic, and cotton, photography is a flexible and tactile medium. His work has been shown in solo exhibitions at the Abington Arts Center, the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial, Cabrini College, and Vox Populi Gallery, and in group shows at The Michener Art Museum, Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, The Print Center, and Fleisher/Ollman Gallery. Micah Danges is a recipient of a 2012 Vermont Studio Center Fellowship, a 2013 Wind Challenge Grant from the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial and was named a 2015 Fellow by The Pew Center for Arts and Heritage.

More images and information may be found at Danges’ website: www.micahdanges.com

Works:

Material information about specific work selections

Maestri series
In these works, sections of photographs and magazine pages are cut, collaged, and face mounted to a frame-like acrylic form. A larger intact image is then face mounted to a solid acrylic rectangle with the same exterior dimensions. These two layers are stacked, then merged when the visible area over the larger image is filled in with a translucent resin.

Two Legs
This piece is composed of a portion of a magazine page, fixed between pieces of newsprint and suspended in wax. The composition is set into an ink-tinted museum board panel.

Two Parts series
Photographs depicting fragments of plant materials suspended between two sections of highly reflective acrylic panels. A rectangle is excised from the center of the top panel and replaced with a different section of photograph from the same series.

Read more from Cleaver Magazine’s Issue #19.