Chromatic Alchemy

About the Exhibition

In Chromatic Alchemy, Joseph Minek presents two interwoven bodies of work—Photographic Works and Void—that extend his nearly two-decade investigation into the materiality of photography. Defying photography conventions, Minek engages in an alchemical process that foregrounds the medium’s elemental components: light, chemistry, and surface to create dynamic pieces that provoke a conversation about what is photographic. His unconventional camera-less practice upends traditional photo-chemical processes to transform light-sensitive paper into vibrant compositions where electric hues collide and dissolve into each another. The result is a luminous, almost topographical abstraction, in which process and aesthetic impact are inseparable.

Like an early photographic alchemist, Minek spent years in the darkroom testing the limits of chromogenic paper and chemical interactions, developing a rigorous system through which he manipulates color and form into dynamic compositions. In his ongoing Photographic Works series, Minek employs a meticulous process of slowly building a composition through masking and methodically titrated chemical baths to create carefully calibrated abstract arrangements. His radical engagement with color yields painterly abstractions—bold washes of pigment bleeding into dense chromatic fields, creating striking contrasts.

During the pandemic, faced with supply chain disruptions and limited access to materials, Minek turned to a new mode of experimentation, leading him to the Void series. After constructing a custom UV exposure unit, he devised a unique approach to Lumen printing. Instead of following Lumen conventions, placing objects atop photosensitive paper, Minek cut intricate patterns into the light-tight bags that come with black and white paper to create unique masking patterns. This method enabled Minek the ability to create detailed lines and striations through exposure. Transitioning back to color, he applied his signature photochemical processes to unlock a kaleidoscope of hues, further expanding the visual and technical possibilities of his practice.

With Photographic Works and Void, Minek challenges our understanding of what photography can be—not a static medium bound to representation, but a dynamic, evolving language of abstraction. His meticulous engagement with light and chemistry places him in dialogue with a lineage of experimental artists who have sought to dismantle and reimagine the photographic object. In his hands, photography is not merely a tool for capturing reality, but a site of transformation—an alchemical space where material and process merge to create something entirely new.

In Conversation with Friday Arts

Friday Arts

Tell us how the Photographic Works series emerged.

Joseph Minek

I’d been working in experimental or non-representational photography since undergrad. In graduate school, I worked on a series [Some Account of the Art of the Photogenic Drawing] where I experimented with deconstructing photographic paper to make unique images. In 2015, one of the schools where I was teaching was getting rid of a bunch of color paper and chemistry and I took all of it. I started thinking instead of deconstructing photographic paper, could I actually construct images using just chemistry? So that was the start of the next decade of my life making this work.

During that first year the work changed dramatically. It took me about two or three years of testing and going through all these different materials to find the parameters that I wanted to impose on myself for the work. I ended up picking one type of chemistry and one type of paper that I was going to use so that I could focus all my efforts on understanding how they functioned. With the chemistry, depending on the dilution, how many pieces have gone through, and the temperature and time, you can get wildly different results. And then also the process of going between chemicals will also give me different results.

At first it was sort of the Wild West. I would make something, look at it, and not understand how it was done. So I would go back through all the steps so that I could actually replicate the calculations and experiments. It took around two years of me doing tests to figure out how to control all of these variables. A typical day would be going in with different sheets of paper and having all of these different chemical baths set up and doing time tests, temperature tests and dilution tests. At one point I had on my wall swatches of every single test I did so that I would actually know—if I wanted to get this perfect orange hue, how I would actually get that in my pieces. It took a long time to get the control, to the point where I knew 95% what the image would look like before it was actually completed.

Do you think of it like a painter might, creating a color palette before starting a piece?

Yes, my process is similar to painters. I have been working with the same paper and chemistry now for almost a decade. I have learned almost every aspect of it. A lot of people look at my work and think that it's all sort of happy accidents. But I keep everything as standardized as I possibly can. I can control about 95% of what's going to happen. So, yeah, if I want to go into the studio and make purple and pink pieces, I know exactly what temperature, dilution, and the time I need to use for each of my chemicals. All that sort of encyclopedia of knowledge is now just ingrained in my brain from doing this for so long.

What do you want the viewer to take away from your work?

A few different things. First is purely aesthetic. All of my pieces have this pink-purple-blue-tone to them and are very vibrant. I'm not a vibrant person, so it's a really stark contrast with making the work. I want people to be able to look at them and get some sort of beauty from the images. But I also want people to think about how we actually define photography or what is photographic. Hence the reason for calling them Photographic Works.

When you look at them, they do not look like photographs. If anything, they actually look more like drawing or painting. And that’s intentional--- so that the viewer hopefully starts to think not only about how these pieces were created, but also for them to think about what is our definition of photography or what is photographic.

One of the things that I always think about is the idea of sunburns. A sunburn is a chemical reaction that's happening with light. So is someone getting a sunburn technically a photograph or is it photographic in nature? These are sort of the questions that I want my viewer to think about.

Something that happens with the work is a little bit of confusion or doubt. Most people would say, how is this a photograph? Confusion into the process of how an image was actually made. And that might lead to a sort of internal dialogue about what photography is or what photography can be. Because that's the main thing that I've always been fascinated with—what do we constitute as photography or photographic? And how can we have a conversation about this?

So let me turn it back to you. What is photography?

I don't think you want to know my answer, because it’s so abstract. Most people think it's an image on their phone or a photograph. I personally think it's anything that deals with light and chemical reactions to create something. Like I said before, I believe a sunburn is technically a photograph. With the Lumen Prints it's the exact same thing, except it's just on paper instead of on skin. Our skin is photosensitive technically. Almost anything could be photography or at least photographic in that sense.

How did you transition from the Photographic Work series into making Lumen prints, of which the Void series is one body?

So the Photographic Works series began in 2015 is still ongoing. But I’ve slowed down on the making these pieces over the past few years because of the pandemic and supply chain issues. Kodak decided to stop making the paper. I still have a decent inventory of that paper, but I didn't want to just blow through it. That’s when I transitioned to starting this new body of work, creating Void while experimenting with Lumen prints.

I consider the Lumen work to be a sister series to the Photographic Work series. I still use the same processes that I did for the Photographic Works in the Lumens, using the same sort of paper, the same chemistry, but it is a different way of working. Before, where I was using just the chemical reactions to create the imagery, now I'm actually using light and the chemical reactions to make the marks on the paper.

Can you explain what a Lumen print is, and how you are using the process to make work?

Lumen prints are essentially the same as photograms. The process for a Lumen print is having light-sensitive paper that you put an object on top of. You then expose it to light—which can be sunlight, or from an enlarger. I use a UV exposure box, so that I can have more control over my lighting situation.

I started the Lumen prints as a way to progress my work. The pandemic limited access to space and supplies so it helped me take a step back from everything. I realized I had collected several different types of black and white photographic paper over the years and the paper comes in these black, light-tight bags. So I started thinking how I could use these bags and the paper to create something that still talked about this idea of non-representational or experimental photography.

As for process, the Lumens start with me making a new composition by cutting into the light-tight bags. I then place the piece of paper into that bag, and I put it into my UV exposure unit and time multiple exposures. From there, I'll put it back into another light tight bag before I take it into the darkroom. I put it through the fixer so that all the excess silver halides are taken away, and the image becomes stable. The final output also depends on the paper that you use—some companies make paper where you get more of a red or orange tint, others you get a purple or pink tint. The color Lumen works are sort of a mash up of the two processes—I take the masking from the Lumens and the chemical processes of the Photographic Works to create this new form.

You’ve talked about using light-safe bags to create marks on paper—tell us more about that.

I call them masks because they're hiding and revealing certain information and that's a term we use when editing photographs, you'll mask certain areas. One thing I really love about going from a mask made from paper on top of the surface [in the Photographic Works] to putting the surface inside of the bag for the Lumen prints, is that I have more control of the composition. I can get very intricate with the lines, and a lot more detail in the striations or the mark-making in the work.

Walk us through your process in the darkroom.

For the Photographic Works, it starts not in the dark room, but just in the space that I'm working to create my composition. I take strips from older work that I use to mask off certain sections and I create a composition. From there, I roll the piece of paper up, tape it together. Once I’m in the dark room, I start the development process, which usually will start with my first chemical, the first developer, to get a gray tone. I’ll then put it into the color developer, which by itself would only give me blue, but depending on how long it's been in the first developer for, it'll go anywhere between pink, purple, red, yellow, and orange. It all depends on the development time and the intensity of the heat. From there, I’ll put it into my water bath to look at the composition I've made. The areas that had masked sections will not have any chemistry on them, so they'll still be sort of like the peach color and then I decide if I want to take them back through the first developer or the color developer to let some more areas change tone and color. From there, I fix the images in a bleach fix, which will brighten it up a bit and make them stable. Then I wash them, and then dry them.

Your titles seem like some kind of mysterious code. How do you title the work?

The titling is sort of my notebook. So with Photographic Works, the title starts with the numerical value, chronologically in how I've made the pieces. So if there is one that starts with 2416, that is the 2,416th piece that I have created in the series. It includes all of my mess ups, all of my tests. Then it goes to the paper that I'm using-- so it's Kodak Metallic Endura Photo Paper, KM EPP. Then after that it becomes the chemistry that I use, so E6 1D stands for first developer. CD stands for color developer. B stands for blix. And then the final part is the application type, which might be RMT, which would stand for roll mask triangles.

All of this is for me to I understand how I made the piece. So if I want to go back and make something similar, I can. Everybody always thinks that it's something they have to deduce or it's some secret. I don't like keeping any of my processes secret. I know some people do. But my thinking is—everyone has cameras in the world, nobody takes the same photograph. I'm fully transparent about how I create the works that I make. Anyone can use this process, but nobody is going to do it the exact same way that I do it. I can give you all the materials to make my work, but you're not going to make it the same way that I do.

You work within a strict system of rules, there also seems to be a kind of passion and excitement about the medium and the work you're making. How do you negotiate those two different motivations?

The majority of the time my practice has these parameters, these rules, these sort of strict guidelines to it. But the ephemeral or ethereal part of the practice happens only when I'm actually in the dark room. It happens as I'm pulling a print out of the final wash or even just going through the chemistry. I think that's sort of like… I want to say that's like the high that I always am chasing while making art, is pulling it out and immediately looking at it and being like, "This is a piece. I have created something here." That is the greatest feeling in the world.

On the other side of that, pulling a piece out and knowing that it's terrible and ripping it up after spending hours in the dark room and not getting a single piece done can be so defeating. There's definitely an emotional aspect to the practice. A lot of the times it's just sort of having that gut feeling and putting the piece through the process, finally being able to see it. As an artist, 90% of the practice is filled with self-doubt. Those little gems that you get here and there, you have to take and sort of soak them in.

If we had a time machine and brought back the pioneers of photography for a studio visit, what would think of your work?

Honestly, I don’t know. I think some of them would be very excited. I think others would be very upset at me. Like William Henry Fox Talbot—the early pioneers of photography, they wanted a mechanical representation of the world. I am doing the exact opposite of that. I am like a painter to them.

But the way that I see my work functioning is that when photography came around, it sort of freed painting from representation. And the introduction of digital photography has sort of freed … I don't want to say capital P photography, but it sort of freed photography from representation to a point. The medium has become so democratic that there's room for this experimental processes to stay.

Early pioneers of photography might be okay with the work because they were playing around with different chemical processes. They were all mad scientists at that point. They weren't really thinking about art. They were thinking about optics and science to create a fixed image on a piece of paper.