peter gronquist projects
TRAUMA AND MEMORY
PETER GRONQUIST PROJECTS
In 2020 artist peter gronquist began a new series, unaware of the places it would take him. inspired by a great personal trauma, gronquist set out to portray the effects of severe emotional trauma onto the self. his idea was to explode slabs of polished stainless steel with ammonium nitrate, twisting the steel into amorphous shapes.
"I wanted to explore the idea of trauma on the self and how it relates to our memory of our lives. The perfect mirror polished 4 x 6 foot slab acts to represent the self. Before the traumatic event it holds within it perfect reflection of the average human form in it. After the aluminum nitrate explosion the self is still evident in the twisted reflections, now made different by the event. The memory of the trauma is immortalized in the form"
While the twisted slab hung from the ceiling one day in the studio, gronquist observed a ray of sunlight reflected from the steel onto the wall, creating a phantasm of sorts. This led to an experiment that would take many months to perfect. By moving the steel into the studio bathroom and tarping out all light, the artist was able to create a makeshift darkroom. Not knowing anything about darkroom photography, Peter set out trying to figure out how to expose reflected light onto black and white photo paper. After agonizing over this process he was finally able to get the image to work using this process: one half second exposure with his iphone flashlight, then developer (thinned way down) and fixative. He then mounts the "photo" onto birch panel, applies resin, then sands finally to a matte finish.
"The long and frustrating process of trying to perfect the photo reflections, for me, added another layer of complexity to the overall project. It was as if I was recording another record of the trauma, like a diary entry. That is, the two dimensional record of the traumatized self.
