Excised Photographs
2001 - 2011
Between 2001 and 2011 Richard Galpin worked almost exclusively with his unique excised photograph (or peeled photograph) technique. Each unique work begins life as a traditional medium-format photograph. The artist then scores into the surface of the print, selectively peeling back and removing the emulsion of the photograph to reveal the fibrous backing paper.
In early works it was relatively easy to understand the logic of what was left in, and what was taken out. A building is removed, leaving a hovering scaffolding structure, or the rungs of a rollercoaster become detached from their guiding rails. But as the works developed, they became increasingly disorientating. Always made entirely through the erasure of information - no collaging or additions of any kind - it became increasingly hard for the viewer to reassemble the image in their mind, or believe that the images could have been produced from a single photograph.
Over ten years of working in this way, Galpin's work developed their own complex logic that seems to offer us a glimpse into an alternative reality. Slicing through photographic evidence of the world that we inhabit, the works reveal a complex web of alternative structures and networks operating just below the the surface.
