Dark Matter
By Granville Carroll
Rochester, New York: Visual Studies Workshop, 2022. Edition of 150.

6 x 9"; 148 pages. Digital offset. Silver and black printing on black paper. Coil bound with screen printed soft matte covers.

VSW: "’Dark Matter’ by Granville Carroll is an artist’s book about darkness and light, the infinity of the cosmos and the divine, big bangs and subtle language. Themes relating to cosmic origins and thoughts on existence, life and death, are embedded in the writings and images. Comprised of heavy black paper with only silver and black printing, the reader of ‘Dark Matter’ must adjust to an aesthetic where light reaches into an already compelling and infinite-seeming blackness.

“’Dark Matter’ expands on Carroll’s themes of Afrofuturism, years of beautiful experiments with analog and digital photographic montage techniques, and poetry. This project extends from his greater work that ‘explores and expands ideas around racial blackness to encompass spatial blackness, temporal blackness, and spiritual blackness. Carroll highlights the imaginative qualities of the human mind through world building and storytelling to discover new futures and states of being.’”

Artist statement: “Granville Carroll is a visual artist, educator at Arizona State University, and Afrofuturist working with digital technology, poetry, and alternative processes to reshape the world. Carroll’s artwork explores photographic representation and vision to understand the process of existence and interpretation. Simultaneously, he explores and expands ideas around racial blackness to encompass spatial blackness, temporal blackness, and spiritual blackness. Carroll highlights the imaginative qualities of the human mind through world building and storytelling to discover new futures and states of being. At the core of his practice is the investigation into metaphysics and the ontology of self and the universe. “Carroll earned a BFA in photography from Arizona State University in 2018 and an MFA in photography and related media from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2020.”
(SOLD/OP)