Adam Jeppesen: From the Shadow Land

About

Jeppesen engages time itself as an agent of chance and unpredictability, converting it into a driving force behind his oeuvre. Time is an essential part of his process and a permanent invisible presence that imbues all his artworks, lingering long after the creation process is complete.

The triptych Tyler H (2022) features large ominous eyes that slowly appear from a scattering of random marks and earth tones, which have been printed from photogravure plates and overlaid with incidental textures from the backside of disused etching plates. The resulting three-part image is not clearly defined but heavily blurred, yet we can make a face out of the abstraction. Jeppesen is giving encouragement to the human tendency of constantly seeking meaning in randomness. 

The print is related to Amos (since 2021), a series of transitory portraits, so-called anthotypes, for which Jeppesen exposes plant-dyed paper to the sun underneath large glass negatives over the course of weeks, sometimes months. The natural pigments from the eucalyptus leaves that are used to dye the paper are not lightfast; therefore, the color slowly fades where the light penetrates the glass. Each portrait from the series was originally created by an AI algorithm with a vast database of millions of images taken from the internet. Jeppesen’s process of creating seductively beautiful images using handmade, natural materials and etching techniques, obscures the otherwise sinister implications of their source.  By building a bridge between the synthetic and the natural, Adam Jeppesen draws attention to the numerous existing connections between humans and artificial intelligence technology and how these algorithms have infiltrated everyday life, at times without our knowledge.

For his Ghosts series (2013–14), Jeppesen created motifs from his epic 487-day voyage that he undertook from the Arctic to Antarctica. In this series of photogravures, he challenged the traditional notion of printing a limited edition of identical prints. Instead, each plate was inked only once and subsequently printed until the image had faded away. The resulting unique poliptychs thus became visibly imbued with the creation process and the passage of time. And once again, Jeppesen is at the mercy of chance, leaving it up to the viewer to decide when the image is at its most interesting—or ultimate—stage.

ADAM JEPPESEN, born 1978 in Kalundborg, Denmark, lives and works in Uruguay. He first gained international recognition with his Wake series (published by Steidl in 2008 in book format). His works have been exhibited in solo exhibitions at Brandts (Odense), FOAM (Amsterdam), C/O Berlin (Berlin), and at the National Museum of Photography, Copenhagen, as well as in numerous group exhibitions worldwide. He has been collaborating with BORCH Editions since 2012.