Baltimore-based artist Angela Deane paints sheet ghosts onto found photos. You might know Deane's work from the cover of Phoebe Bridgers' Stranger in the Alps (2017) or perhaps you've seen her ghosties elsewhere in the great digital regions beyond.

In this, part one of a two-part episode, we talk briefly about nostalgia (more on that in part 2), and then dig into Deane's artist statement. What does it mean to capture a moment in time? Photography as an art form plays with notions of presence and absence. How does spirit photography manage equations of presence and absence? How does Angela Deane play with these concepts in her Ghost Paintings?

Then, we revisit theories and histories regarding spirit photography (see Episodes 1 & 2 for more) to contextualize the impact of Deane's contemporary take on image doctoring.

Note: Annabelle now knows how to pronounce "Prarie Schooner" thanks to a two-second Google search. Whoops. Peace and Love.

Make contact:

@ghostswerepeopletoo

[email protected]

Bibliography

https://angeladeane.com/home.html

Photography and Spirit by John Harvey, “Chapter 3: Art”

At the Edge of Sight: Photography and the Unseen by Shawn Michelle Smith, “Chapter 5: Chansonetta Stanley Emmons’s Nostalgic Views”

MORGAN, JAMES. “NOSTALGIA.” Prairie Schooner, vol. 8, no. 3, 1934, pp. 153–153. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40622498.