Originally from Washington state, artist and educator Rik Garrett has developed an approach to photography that utilizes alternative processes developed and used to capture esoteric subjects.

From a technique supposed to have measured the “auras” of a living being to that used by a priest who claimed to have photographed the crucifixion, Garrett explores how historic approaches can capture their own life.

Shannon Taggart

What first drew you to experiment with photography and the invisible?

Rik Garrett

I’d been practicing photography from a young age. My mom was a photographer. I got my first camera at the age of 6, and I started using the darkroom when I was 14. I loved the medium but always felt as though I wanted to capture something more ambiguous. 

I read an article on spirit photography and ectoplasm by Marina Warner in Cabinet Magazine in 2003. I was fascinated with the incredible séance photographs of Albert von Schrenck-Notzing. I’d been interested in metaphysical subjects from the time I was young, so learning the ways that my two interests were connected was a serious revelation.

A couple of years later I got the book The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult. From that point forward, I was hooked. I loved seeing all the examples of different approaches to photographing the invisible: spirit photographs, thought photographs, etc. It felt as though I’d found what I’d been looking for.

When my wife and I got together, I started examining different aspects of my life: my sense of self, where I lived, and what it means to be connected to another person. That’s when I started working on Subtle Bodies in earnest. I was using these historical techniques of photographing the invisible to examine my life.

Rik Garrett, Goetigraph #26—Bune (after Strindberg’s Celestographs), 2019. Courtesy the artist.

ST

I love your full-body Kirlian photographs. Did you build a device to create those? Can you explain how the technique works?

RG

I started by building my own device; I think I found plans in an older magazine. I modified the use of the device to make some of my early Kirlian-related works, including the first full-body images. After struggling with this process for a bit, I ended up purchasing a vintage Violet Wand device and using that for the full-body images. It was a bit easier to handle, and I was happier with the results.

Rik Garrett, AURA (Jane, Figure 1-1), 2016. Courtesy the artist.

The process is quite involved! I purchase traditional color photographic paper in large rolls. I will trim off a piece approximately 10 feet long and lay it over a person, all in complete darkness. An electrical current is applied, either with the homemade Kirlian device or the Violet Wand, to the reverse of the paper. This results in a mild shock to the subject. After the entire body has been exposed in this manner, I take the paper and process it in large troughs of chemistry. 

Rik Garrett, AURA (Jane, Figure 1-1), 2016. Courtesy the artist.

ST

I once interviewed Dennis Stillings, a researcher of electricity and founding curator of the Bakken Museum in Minneapolis. He told me that, in his opinion, Kirlian photography doesn’t attest to a mechanistic feature of the world, but certain individuals can get interesting results. What is your opinion of the Kirlian process?

RG

Like a lot of these subjects, my feelings on this change over time. I believe there are truths to be revealed, but I don’t always feel that it’s as direct or scientific as some proponents may believe. That’s why I work in a fine art context. I experiment, I see the results, but I don’t pretend to have the answers. I document elements of myself, my life, my marriage. Personally, I vacillate on whether they show objective truths to be diagnosed, or whether we as viewers just attribute meaning. Either way, I see my work as an entry way to examine elements of life—our sense of self, the ways that we interact with each other.

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