A S P E N M A Y S
A S P E N M A Y S | Webs, Windows and Templates
Webs, Windows and Templates are an intertwined series of work in progress photograms exploring my ongoing fascination with the tools involved in rendering space. In this case, I'm using architectural templates belonging to my father, uncle, and grandfather; I grew up with my father's drafting table and office in our home, and I have long been fascinated with templates and tapes needed to variously make shapes and structures visible and invisible. The photograms made using tape are iterations that derive from my collection of images of taping building windows in preparation for storms and other disasters. The intersecting lines of tape form a central starburst, an incidental shape resulting from the basic utility of the gesture. In my work, I have returned to this visual motif time and again to suggest cosmic expansion and collapse. The spider web photograms are also made from tape. I'm interested in the spiders' engineering and structure building as a way to introduce another timescale into the work. Each taped web is brought into the darkroom and sequentially pulled apart after each exposure until it disappears, making each one unique and unrepeatable. All works are silver gelatin; those works with color are made using fabric dyes to explore a palette inspired by the sky blues.
ASPEN MAYS, Webs, Windows and Templates, 2024,
23 pieces, Unique Silver Gelatin Prints with Fabric Dye, 8ft x 24ft
A B O U T T H E A R T I S T
Aspen Mays (b. 1980 Charleston, SC) received her MFA in photography from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2009 and a BA in Anthropology and Spanish from The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 2002. Solo exhibitions of her work have been mounted by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago, IL; Light Work, Syracuse, NY; and the Center for Ongoing Projects and Research, Columbus, OH. Mays was recently included in the exhibition Anna Atkins Refracted: Contemporary Works at the New York Public Library (2019). Mays was the recipient of a 2006 Rotary Fellowship and was a 2009 Fulbright Fellow. Her publication (made in collaboration with Dan Boardman) Where We’ve Been, Where We’re Going, Why? was shortlisted for the First Photobook Award by the Aperture Foundation and Paris Photo in 2016. She lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, where she is Assistant Professor at California College of the Arts.