Carbon

“Brandt’s works often emerge as a response to spatial, social, and environmental issues, and in this recent body of work, the artist has visited the aftermaths of recent forest fires around California. In these sites of devastation, Brandt collected cinder from which he created pigment used in the depiction of the photographed sites. The resulting carbon prints, depicting the forest sites and transitional spaces from where the cinder carbon came, are constructed in two contrasting ways: one version absorbs light while the other duplicates it. The first set, printed on lightweight black-out fabric, is quiet and features subtle tonal ranges of black on black, while the other set, printed on gold-anodized surfaces, is vibrant and highly reflective. By continuing his characteristic process of creating a dialogue between subject matter and material, Brandt bridges the gaps between conceptual gesture, material experimentation, and political statement to create works of poetic stillness, subtle interaction, and urgency.”

— Christian Rattemeyer, OSMOS Magazine