Relics

SPACE presents Relics, an installation by Maine artists, Cole Caswell and Bryan Graf of Sun System Press.

The artists overlap images that create kinetic visual patterns for their window installation, engaging the viewer from multiple angles. Consisting of images printed on transparency paper that were all made around a toxic swamp, Relic is acidic and high key in color and tone, reflecting the nature of the landscape. The artwork creates shifting color fields that project onto the street as the time of day changes. Audiences and passersby become participants in the installation themselves as they engage directly and indirectly with the work.

Cole Caswell researches the remnants and patterns in the landscape that reflect contemporary strategies of survival. Through strata of observation, technology, subjectivity, and his surroundings, Caswell investigates geography and its impact on our perceived ability to survive. He uses traditional, historic and digital photographic media—including tintypes, environmental data sets, and augmented sampling procedures—to investigate our present condition.

Cole received an interdisciplinary M.F.A. from the Maine College of Art, and has been working, living and traveling throughout the county in a nomadic format. At the present he is exploring ones ability to subsist within our contemporary environment, while furthering his inquirers into emergent and experimental photographic processes, perspectives, and applications. His studio is located on Peaks Island off the coast of Maine.

Follow Cole on Instagram – @colecaswell

Bryan Graf navigates the photographic medium with a discursive interest in the history of photography and it’s relationship to design, painting, and narrative fiction. His practice involves mixing tracks (or prints) that have visceral, optical and conceptual relationships.

He received an MFA from Yale University in 2008 and a BFA from the Art Institute of Boston in 2005. Graf has held solo shows nationally and internationally. His work has been exhibited at the George Eastman House Museum, (Rochester, NY); Institute of Contemporary Art, (Portland, ME); and DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, (Lincoln, MA) and has appeared in numerous publications, including Blind Spot, Details, Harpers and the New York Times.

Graf published four books: Wildlife Analysis (Conveyor, 2013); Moving Across the Interior(ICA@MECA, 2014); Prismatic Tracks (Conveyor, 2014); and Debris of The Days (Conveyor 2017). His photographs and books are held in the public collections of The Museum of Modern Art, the Portland Museum of Art, Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, the Victoria and Albert Museum, International Center of Photography, and the Tokyo Institute of Photography.

Follow Bryan on Instagram – @bryangrafstudio

Sun System Press is a publishing collaboration between Cole Casswell  (Peaks Island, ME), Bryan Graf (Portland, ME), and CJ Heyliger (Los Angeles, CA). They publish and distribute artist books, posters and edition prints. They focus on experimental, low-fi methods of production.

Follow Sun System Press on Instagram – @sunsystempress