Dove Allouche, Désublimation_24, 2019

Zinc powder, smoke black, ethanol and pigment ink on paper
114,5 x 163,5 x 5 cm framed
Unique

Désublimations is a large-scale drawings series, atmospheric and rendered in rich, sonorous gradations of blacks and grays, they are derived from rapid-fire photographs Dove Allouche has taken while flying over Venezuela’s Salto Angel Falls. Allouche printed successive photographs onto drawing paper, very lightly so that there was little definition or contrast and then hand-applied chemicals and metallic powders to newly define the images’ values of light and dark, in effect “developing” the photographs through drawing.

In the final step, now only able to perceive the underlying photographs from memory, he worked with a stick of graphite to draw out subtle time-lapse transitions, capturing the dissolution of the falls as they plummet 3,200 feet. As the drawings had each emerged from ghost-like image to lush definition, so too the subject transforms, its properties inverted by Allouche’s draftsmanship—roiling water gradually becomes mist, then cloud, as sky darkens abysmally.

The chemical properties of the materials used will also undergo subtle changes over time: as solid turns to vapor, and vapor into solid, light areas will gradually darken and dark areas lighten.