The trees in Sarah Hood Salomon’s photographs often appear venerable or even invincible. But trees are chopped down all the time, sometimes to b emade into paper, the substance on which photos are most often printed.
This fraught connection links the objects, not all of which can be described as pictures, in Salomon’s “Questioning the Photograph.” The Multiple Exposures Gallery show features black-and-white prints that have been cut, scratched, crumpled or shredded.
The artist’s inspiration was the imminent destruction of woods on land that’s about to be developed. Salomon represents the trees’ vulnerability by slicing a photo of them and arranging the pieces into a shrublike sculpture
fixed by clear resin. Other pictures are reduced to ribbons or even dust and embedded within transparent blocks or orbs. Thus preserved, the pictures forfeit their essential character, just as trees lose their nature when turned
into firewood or newsprint.
If demolition is the point of most of these pieces, the two scratched photos have a different feel. Salomon carves flurries of fine lines into the pictures in ways that complement rather than question the original composition. In
“Counterpoint,” the incisions suggest the effect of wind, giving the photo a kinetic quality. While Salomon pointedly embalms many of her images of trees, this picture is swirlingly alive.
Sarah Hood Salomon: Questioning the Photograph Through June 30 at Multiple Exposures Gallery, Torpedo Factory, 105 N. Union St., Alexandria. multipleexposuresgallery.com. 703-683-2205.