Guest Artist: Christopher Fisher on Loss
The internet found “us”. He introduces himself as- Christopher Fisher, a photographer, installation artist and curator. He earned his M.F.A. in Photo, Video and Related Media in 2005 from the School of Visual Arts.
He creates art out of loss. And each loss drives him into something deeper every time.
He comes to The dKol la femme Project to let us know he sees our mission and wants to find a way to participate in the artist in residency we have here. We will share more on that in the future but for now we wanted to spotlight Christopher.
statement of purpose
My father died suddenly in his sleep when my wife was in her third trimester with our first child. The next month, we had to put our 8 year-old dog, Indiana, down due to Lymphoma. This time in my life that should have been the happiest was marred by a deep sadness I could not come to reckon and in many ways still have not completely.
We often say that my oldest has an emotional maturity that most young boys do not exhibit and wonder if it’s because we went through what felt like persistent melancholy while he was in utero.
Growing up, I felt the gravity of loss in a way my own siblings and parents did not; or at least did not communicate. It was quiet and unspoken, but penetrated my being for as long as I can remember. I have been called sensitive (at times as an insult) my entire life. I often say I’m in the “sad boy club forever.” As a child, I experienced loss even in things I never had—my mother’s parents both died when she was 17; my father, the oldest of 9, lost 3 siblings under the age of 1; and when I was 3 years old and my mother cut her hair really, really short I cried for 4 days straight.
In kindergarten I discovered I was colorblind and it has since represented the loss of something I’ve never had the ability to see.
This constant and familiar sense of loss inspired work documenting my closest relationships—taking time to degrade the images even as they deteriorated in front of me, followed by my grad school thesis “Colorblind People are Stupid” which broke down and broke apart colorblind tests and reimagined them with intimate scenes that represented detachment and bereavement.
In January 2020, one of my best friends succumbed to cancer after a 3 year long battle and shortly thereafter, the whole world was gutted and left lost by the havoc of a global pandemic.
Art is a means for me to confront loss—big or small—as a result, the decay of an image and the excavation of memory.
His most recent work is titled “we are all experiencing trauma” and these are some of his pieces from that series. Christopher shares what this series means to him below.
we are all experiencing trauma
mixed media, dry pigment/scratching on photographs of graphite on paper
2021, all works 30"x40"
I’ve been carrying this phrase around with me since early in the pandemic—probably month 3 or 4 of being locked down—like something left in my pocket and found, a comforting reminder that we share these emotions collectively. I’ve been using it as a mantra to help cope.
I began making new work in January of 2020 after a hiatus from art making following the death of my father in 2012. This new work came out of an emotional necessity and reaction to losing a close friend to cancer; another loss felt deeply in my bones, one that, despite his 5 year battle, I didn’t quite have the bandwidth to endure. My father died suddenly; Steve's was drawn out since his diagnosis. I had not properly prepared for either, even after they were gone.
That work became a series of photographs of graphite on paper. There was no way to fix the loose graphite other than to photograph and print them and the resulting prints remain a document of grief; an expression of pain passing through varying stages. The Covid-19 pandemic began just a few months later.“we are all experiencing trauma” is the evolution of this work. I begin with 30”x40” archival prints of the “pncil drawings” series and work into them with dry pigment, razors and my favorite tool—an anvil left behind in my basement by the previous owners of my home. Altering the image this way is another attempt to degrade the original image and memory further; razor cuttings relieving the pressure of the pristine print. The anvil itself both represents the weight we all carry as a result of our past as well as lending a metallic shimmer to the pigments, shavings and paper —a connection to the future; creating one-of-a-kind mixed media pieces inducing the feelings of trauma we share collectively while connecting past loss with the present.
You can find Christopher’s work at www.christopherfisherart.com and you can follow his handle over on IG @pncildrawings
We are looking for an array of artisans to join our cause.
We want unique talent. Artists with a drive to create with an intent. We need artists with the capability to create unique art after having heard a personal story. The vision is to create a representation of a story that will be shared and then in turn the participant will receive your one of a kind artwork.
If you are interested in contributing, please email: stories@thedkollafemmeproject.org