BODIES OF WORK
Memory Park
Memory Park
These mysterious images use original photographs taken during Ratcliff’s childhood in Michigan and when she attended school in Europe in the 1950s. One new technique she explored in this series was expansion of the images beyond their actual edges to explore their abstract potential. Using graphite and prismacolor she created a variety of visually rhythmic compositions.
Tryon, North Carolina, 1999 :: mixed media (21 x 30 in.) I took the two photos that make up this composition at age seven with my Brownie box camera. By reversing the left-hand image of a hedge, space was opened up around a central form. On the one hand, the image recedes into depth; on the other hand, the three snapshots collaged lower left float on the surface. I extended the original transferred images beyond their edges by drawing them out with a stick of graphite.
Umbrella Race, 1999 :: mixed media (19 1/2 x 30 in.) Believe it or not, the original photograph for this piece is of a race in a pool where the contestants had to swim backwards holding an umbrella. To syncopate the action, I reduced or enlarged the umbrellas and added color with acrylic or prismacolor.
Walking to Town, 1999 :: mixed media (21 x 32 in.) I remember running ahead of my girlfriends and turning around quickly to snap this photograph as we walked into town for a few hours of liberty. This composition combines the source image on the left and a more ghostly, reversed transfer on the right.
Lake Geneva, 1999 :: mixed media (19 1/2 x 26 in.) In this composition, I used graphite to draw out the swan’s wake and to pool the water around the central axis. The soft grays and texture of the transfer on the left contrast with the inky black sheen of the photograph on the right.
Circle of Friends, 1999 :: mixed media 21 1/2 x 29 1/2 in.
Snowfall, 1999 :: mixed media (19 3/4 x 27 1/2 in.) Early one morning I photographed this new snow in the Alps: that’s the image on acetate on the left side of this composition. Forty years later, I reversed and repeated the chalet’s railing at the image’s right edge and extended it out across the sheet, creating mysterious floating, winged forms in the landscape.
Santander, Spain, 1999 :: mixed media (22 1/4 x 31 in.) What first attracted my eye was the glass of water on the balcony wall. Then I saw the castle in the distance and used the window and curtains to frame it. In this composition, I repeated the central image in whole or part four times using the transfer method, building a sequence of architectural forms.
Lake Michigan, 1999 :: mixed media (22 1/4 x 30 in.) I used textured Japanese paper to evoke both the feeling of snow and a terrain map. This composition comes from an old photograph of my family’s dogs romping on the beach of Lake Michigan in winter.