Eileen Quinlan
Swipe
2016
Eileen Quinlan, Swipe, 2016. Photography, Gelatin silver print
Eileen Quinlan’s abstracted images, like Swipe, rely on the manipulation of photographic materials inside the studio itself and reject the exterior world for complex interrogations of the medium.
Eileen Quinlan makes photographic images through unusual processes, stripping the medium down to its essentials, and working experimentally with light, lenses, chemicals, reflections, and shadows. While the invention of photography enabled people to capture images of the real world, its geographies, inhabitants, and conflicts, Quinlan turns the medium back in on itself, in some ways, using the camera, liquids, mirrors, and lights to play with the apparatus and process itself, photographing photography itself.