Jim Dingilian creates incredible subtractive images from bottles filled with smoke. The artist begins by coating the bottles’ inner surfaces with smoke. He then uses brushes and small implements mounted on the ends of dowels to reach inside. With a steady hand, Jim slowly and selectively erases certain areas. The smoke which remains on the glass forms the amazing images seen below.
Dingilian was born in York, PA but spent seven years of his childhood in Waterloo, Belgium before returning to the United States, receiving his MFA in photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1996. Represented by theMcKenzie Fine Art Gallery in New York, Dingilian’s work centers around subtractive images on found objects. As Jim explains:
“The miniature scenes I depict are of locations on the edge of suburbia which seem mysterious or even slightly menacing despite their commonplace nature. The bottles add to the implied narratives of transgression. When found by the sides of roads or in the weeds near the edges of parking lots, empty liquor bottles are artifacts of consumption, delight, or dread. As art objects, they become hourglasses of sorts, their drained interiors now inhabited by dim memories.”
To see more amazing artwork by Jim check out McKenzie Fine Art and the Packer Schopf Gallery.