The Spiritual and the Material in the Work of Collin Rowland

 The title of Collin Rowland's current photography show posits a dualism between two realms (spiritual and physical). The two sides appear as distinct subject matter in his work: the first, the use of light as a symbol of a transcendent illumination; the second, a focus on sensuous materiality without any reference to narratives.
A good example of the first is his photograph Captives Set Free (2009). It depicts a prison corridor, but the corridor is empty. All the doors are open, and an impossibly bright sunlight blazes at the end of the tunnel. The light has presence here, like a vision, since prisons rarely have such access to the sun. However, the vision takes place in the absence of anyone to set free. Hence, the viewer experiences a kind of post-vision experience, as if the space itself is sacred.
The religious narrative is abandoned in his second focus, a straightforward fascination with weathered materials. A good example of this is Withering Trophies. Piles of rusted objects take on his interest, but for no discernible reason. The formal arrangements of these compositions are not especially striking. There seems to me to be a compensatory grounding here in the sensuous, a longing in this artist to move away from a conception of the spiritual as transcendent (the Medieval conception) through direct sense perception: the here-and-now.

These two directions unite in the work Flowers of Freedom (2009), a closeup of old wood, its gray paint flaking off. Similar to a harmonious impressionist painting, the work is beautiful; the stripes on the wood appear like the stems of flowers wavily reflected on water. Like the second type of work mentioned above, it focuses on sensuous materials, but instead succeeds in depicting these materials as an image of the spirit.

I learned later that the two images I requested here for this review were the only two in the exhibition taken at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp just outside Berlin, Germany. It is an eerily moving acknowledgment of the suffering of those interned there, recalling a time and place in which one would have found the justification for a Godless world.
- A.C. Frabetti

Collin Rowland. 'Freedom: an Exploration of the Relationship between the Spiritual and Physical world through Mixed Medium Photography' at TAZA, 2900 Jefferson Ave. in Clifton/Cincinnati OH. Through April 3rd.
Visit Rowland's site by clicking here.
Photos: Above, Captives Set Free (2009). Below, Flowers of Freedom (2009). Photos courtesy of the artist.