Michael Goesele is a New York based artist, whose most recent show entitled, “The Pure and Profound: Looking Beyond the Negative”, focused on his further exploration of mordancage. Each image in the exhibition is a unique print from a negative that he has manipulated by hand, through searing, burning, scratching and bleaching. It is perhaps one of the most tactile and pure ways to realize a completely abstract work. Nonetheless, somehow the visual impression insistently refers back to organic forms; we are convinced we have seen these patterns and shapes in the natural world, but cannot remember where.

The printing process exhausts the film’s possibilities, thus each print from the manipulated negative is unique. The resulting prints are a stunning study in black and white, with riveting densities, a confounding depth of field, all overlaid in some instances with elegant, bright white strands of finely burned film.