Leigh Anne Langwell's art crosses the conventional boundaries of what is expected from photographs - in fact, they're not even called photographs.ˇ
Instead, these unique forms are called photograms, a technique which produces photos that look like giant X-ray images, oftentimes obscuring what the viewer is actually looking at.
Langwell has a background in medicine and biology, so it is fitting that her art is being displayed at the University of New Mexico Hospital in the fifth-floor art gallery.ˇ In a calm corridor with floor-to-ceiling windows on one end and the art adorning the walls on the other, viewers are free to gaze at the works as long as they like.
Some of the most striking pieces include the oversized "Dark Field," which showcases swimming sperm and "Maculae" which shows a typically unseen view of the rods and cones that make up the eyes.ˇ Three untitled pieces are at the end of the display. The frames are simple, black designs that accentuate the feel of the art, which is primarily black. The images are white or show up as light.
Photograms are uniquely captured without a camera or a negative, using two-second light bursts to capture the images and their shadows onto a sheet similar to the process used in making x-rays.ˇ
Langwell said her artwork draws parallels between the macroscopic and the microscopic, drawing on both microscopes and telescopes for her inspiration and her actual source material.ˇ This is easy to see in the aforementioned "Dark Field," which presents matter that works on an atomic level as larger than life, the canvas easily coming in at larger than six feet by eight feet.ˇ
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Also, Langwell said she likes to see the body as an environment or a landscape. Langwell's artwork is a unique vision and it is only being shown in the UNMH Gallery until Jan. 30 during normal visiting hours.
