Ceaphas Stubbs

Lives and works in NJ, USA

Artist statement

Ceaphas Stubbs’s large-format photographs navigate the innate tension between desire and pain, and unpacks the phenomenology of loss by giving visual language to the persistent tingling, itching, burning, and aching that accompany want. Stubbs scavenges materials, which often hold traces of intimacy yet embody only a fraction of a greater whole —colorful, patterned swatches that belong to a larger garment; scenes clipped from photographs rooted in someone else’s memories; and limbs dismembered from sex acts depicted in pornographic magazines. These materials are then refigured, suspended, anchored, or overlaid into parallel universes using string and wire affixed to a wooden armature. In a final gesture, Stubbs places this armature against a vibrant and textural backdrop, and photographs the tableau to generate a single image, where only shadows remain as remnants of his trace, and the multi-step process. His creative process is an experiment in itself, a performance that tests the understood limits of photography, perception, and patience, marrying analog and digital processes to produce imagery that is simultaneously nostalgic and afro-futuristic. The viewer is drawn to the photograph by its use of high key color and the flashes of flesh from pornographic magazines, like the line of a long neck or a muscled leg bent at the knee, all arranged in a fragile framework of string and scraps. The intensity of focus on body parts and the charm-like quality of the found materials...

Artwork