DNA no. 7793L – no. 7789R, 2018

“Artist-chemist Michael Koerner uses tintypes to explore his genetic heritage in his solo show, “My DNA”. These chemigrams mimic the chromosomal mutations he inherited from his parents. …Koerner has worked with photography since 2004. Over the years his practice has slowly moved into chemical-based works, as he began focusing more on the process behind the photographic image and less on its pictorial outcome. Koerner took a workshop with France Scully Osterman at the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York, in 2009 that helped clarify a few of his techniques, but a majority of his chemical choices and processes have been completely self-taught. Each six-by-eight- inch work is created by dripping and layering chemicals onto the surface of a metal plate covered with thickening agents, such as agar gum or honey, in a process akin to painting. This creates abstract images Koerner only partially controls. The natural reactions form double helices, mountainous peaks, and appendage-like shapes that mirror his own hands. “Something that will be in every piece I make are these fractals, these pure silver growth patterns,” explains Koerner. “I can’t control that. Sometimes they grow long, Sometimes they grow long, spindly, treelike patterns, and sometimes they are short and stubby. I don’t have a choice, and I love that about this abstraction. That is what nature gives you. I like the fact that the fractals are also formed by nature, and that their growth references the mutations in my own DNA.”

-Chicago Reader

Michael Koerner / Courtesy of Catherine Edelman Gallery

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