Tania Kaaz

It is always interesting to see something out of the ordinary. And still finding people who embrace film and process is refreshing in our digital world. I encourage you to take a look at Tania Kaaz's work below.

www.taniakaaz.com

Biography

I am Tania Kaaz and I've been interested in art since I can remember. I've always enjoyed going to art museums and studying the paintings and photographs, even as a young child. When I was 11 years old, I got a form of muscular dystrophy. The muscular dystrophy made me partially paralyzed, forcing me go through the world at a very slow pace, causing me to see the minute things many people would normally miss. This made me mindful of my surroundings and I started chronicling them through art. I soon started taking black and white photographs with 35mm film, mesmerized at the details I could capture that others missed, things like the texture of masonry or the pattern of rust on a dumpster. After high school, I went into remission, but my appreciation and passion for those things unseen by most remained.

I continued with black and white photography for two semesters at the University of Colorado. During this time, digital photography was just starting to take hold. I appreciated analog photography more than ever. With film, you only get a limited amount of chances to get your image to look correct. You have to get the shot right or that image is gone forever. You cannot take the photo, check it and retake it. There is a beauty in that. If you process the film yourself, you also have to make sure you process correctly, or your negative could look different than intended, or even be damaged. There is also the physical permanence of film. The negative is something you can touch. It is there, it exists in reality. As my classmates embraced digital, I felt more and more alienated.

After college, I entered the corporate world and did not take photographs for a very long time until an amazing film photographer, Luke Henery, encouraged me to begin taking analog photos again. I started with black and white photography, taking awful photos at first, but it quickly came back to me. I started to process my own black and white film at home. I still take black and white photos but I also take color photos which I process at home.

Artist Statement

I soak my color film, which involves submerging my film in various liquids before I process it. These liquids destroy the film, causing interesting effects. I make surreal, otherworldly images, creating landscapes which are different than what our eyes see. I'm very interested in manipulating images. I enjoy making photos that create an altered reality and show ordinary objects and scenes in a surreal, almost magical way. I like to see what the eye doesn't normally see and soaking accomplishes that. The effects of soaking are random and often unexpected, completely unique and unable to be duplicated. Creating beauty out of destruction is an interesting concept and soaking too long can cause the film to be destroyed beyond recognition, so there is an excitement that always happens when I soak my film and process it and see beautiful negatives emerge from the chemicals with the emulsion intact and not eaten away. I hope my images can produce the sense of childlike wonder in the viewer that they produce in me in the making of them.

Currently exhibiting at:

Revolog Animal Calendar 2018

images for the months of November and December

http://shop.revolog.net/product/best-of-revolog-calendar-2017

Denver Art Society

734 Santa Fe Dr.

Denver, CO 80204

http://coop.denverartsociety.org/

The Brew on Broadway

3445 South Broadway

Englewood, CO 80113

http://www.thebrewonbroadway.com/