By Jason Working
© Angilee Wilkerson
Life cycle: This image of stylized animal remnants is part of Wilkerson’s The Remains series.
TEXAS WOMEN’S UNIVERSITY,
Master’s in Photography with a Minor in Intermedia
It was Angilee Wilkerson’s deep love for the landscape of
Texas—in particular the Red River and Trinity River watersheds and
the nearby Chisholm Trail—that sparked the idea for The Remains
series. The series is an eerie collection of stylized still lifes
of discovered animal remains that Wilkerson hopes will convey some
of the ambiguity and beauty she sees while walking through her
favorite piece of Texas wilderness.
“It’s an area full of floodplains, thickets and prairie, and more
and more, it’s being subsumed by real estate developers,” Wilkerson
explains. “The landscape is such a beautiful canvas. Each time I
walk in this area, it changes. But it’s subtle. You have to look
closely.”
When Wilkerson was tasked with compiling an original project for
her master’s in Photography at Texas Women’s University, she knew
that the dead animals she’d been encountering on her walks might
serve as a conduit. She wanted to get people to think about our
threatened environment and the uncertainties of life and death.
Wilkerson thought the bones she came across, specifically coyote,
beaver, rat, bird, armadillo, opossum, deer and the occasional
bobcat bones, would make perfect subjects.
“I’d walk and in the process pick up these bones,” she relates.
“This might sound macabre, but the bones have a kind of sweet,
earthy smell that is really kind of pleasant—when you get them
home.”
The found relics weren’t always picture-ready. “A lot of times, I
ended up tooling a bone out of the ground and there were insects
and skin still attached,” she says. But after some cleaning and
preparing, Wilkerson would position each piece where she wanted it
in the frame and, using her Nikon D100, captured digital images of
the remains. “I’d just sort of play around and put them where I
liked them,” she says. “When they looked right, I’d get [the
shot].”
She then employed an image-lift process and used brass plates
treated with polymer, raw beeswax and earth resin to create a
series of 7” x 9” plates that evoke an antiquated tintype but are
moodier and more textured in color. And unlike the chemical-heavy
tintype process, Wilkerson’s process is environmentally safe, again
reflecting her awareness of man’s impact on nature. “I developed
this technique out of a desire to make work reminiscent of
19th-century processes, but without the heavy-metal toxicity,” she
says.
The Remains series has an exquisiteness that creeps up on you,
which is what Wilkerson says she was aiming for. “I’m intrigued by
that sense of unknowing, by something that’s not definable,” she
says. “What I’m doing is kind of turning these remains into fetish
objects—something beautiful.”
| TECH
BOX |
 CAMERA:
Nikon D200
LENS:
AF-S Zoom-NIKKOR 28-70mm f/2.8D IF-ED |
Angilee Wilkerson
A student photographer explores the last cycle in nature’s circle of life.
April 1, 2008
By Jason Working
Life cycle: This image of stylized animal remnants is part of Wilkerson’s The Remains series.
TEXAS WOMEN’S UNIVERSITY,
Master’s in Photography with a Minor in Intermedia
It was Angilee Wilkerson’s deep love for the landscape of Texas—in particular the Red River and Trinity River watersheds and the nearby Chisholm Trail—that sparked the idea for The Remains series. The series is an eerie collection of stylized still lifes of discovered animal remains that Wilkerson hopes will convey some of the ambiguity and beauty she sees while walking through her favorite piece of Texas wilderness.
“It’s an area full of floodplains, thickets and prairie, and more and more, it’s being subsumed by real estate developers,” Wilkerson explains. “The landscape is such a beautiful canvas. Each time I walk in this area, it changes. But it’s subtle. You have to look closely.”
When Wilkerson was tasked with compiling an original project for her master’s in Photography at Texas Women’s University, she knew that the dead animals she’d been encountering on her walks might serve as a conduit. She wanted to get people to think about our threatened environment and the uncertainties of life and death. Wilkerson thought the bones she came across, specifically coyote, beaver, rat, bird, armadillo, opossum, deer and the occasional bobcat bones, would make perfect subjects.
“I’d walk and in the process pick up these bones,” she relates. “This might sound macabre, but the bones have a kind of sweet, earthy smell that is really kind of pleasant—when you get them home.”
The found relics weren’t always picture-ready. “A lot of times, I ended up tooling a bone out of the ground and there were insects and skin still attached,” she says. But after some cleaning and preparing, Wilkerson would position each piece where she wanted it in the frame and, using her Nikon D100, captured digital images of the remains. “I’d just sort of play around and put them where I liked them,” she says. “When they looked right, I’d get [the shot].”
She then employed an image-lift process and used brass plates treated with polymer, raw beeswax and earth resin to create a series of 7” x 9” plates that evoke an antiquated tintype but are moodier and more textured in color. And unlike the chemical-heavy tintype process, Wilkerson’s process is environmentally safe, again reflecting her awareness of man’s impact on nature. “I developed this technique out of a desire to make work reminiscent of 19th-century processes, but without the heavy-metal toxicity,” she says.
The Remains series has an exquisiteness that creeps up on you, which is what Wilkerson says she was aiming for. “I’m intrigued by that sense of unknowing, by something that’s not definable,” she says. “What I’m doing is kind of turning these remains into fetish objects—something beautiful.”
| TECH BOX |
CAMERA:
Nikon D200
LENS:
AF-S Zoom-NIKKOR 28-70mm f/2.8D IF-ED |
