PALIMPSEST
/ˈpalɪm(p)sɛst/
noun : something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form.
Revisiting a personal archive of images assembled over the past decade, I was drawn to photographs I’d made at locations of spiritual and religious significance. This work deliberately experiments with analogue processes including point and shoot cameras, expired film and direct camera flashlight illumination to create an unpredictable crude aesthetic. Traversing the borderlands between the sacred and the profane; exploring spectatorship and worship and focusing upon an occult history of spiritual re-appropriation throughout religious practices and symbolism, the ‘reused’ or altered places of worship. For me, the resulting images inhabit the zone between divine pleasure and unholy disappointment – evocative of the oneiric and otherworldly notion of a ‘religious experience’.
Samuel Horn, July 2020
