Marvel

Susan Rankaitis, Marvel, 1986, combined media on photographic paper, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1989.4, © 1986, Susan Rankaitis
Copied Susan Rankaitis, Marvel, 1986, combined media on photographic paper, sheet and image: 9048 in. (128.621.9 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1989.4, © 1986, Susan Rankaitis

Artwork Details

Title
Marvel
Date
1986
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
sheet and image: 9048 in. (128.621.9 cm.)
Copyright
© 1986, Susan Rankaitis
Credit Line
Museum purchase
Mediums Description
combined media on photographic paper
Classifications
Keywords
  • Architecture — vehicle — airplane
  • Abstract
Object Number
1989.4

Artwork Description

Susan Rakaitis was a painter before she turned to photography in the 1980s. To achieve subtle tonalities of light and depth she found unobtainable with paint, she began experimenting with photographic materials. Like a painter, she brushed or sprayed various photographic emulsions on photographic paper and added images at various stages of the process. Photograms, contact prints, projections, and enlarged multiple-generation negatives are montaged within the layered surface emulsion. Aeronautical subjects appear frequently in her work; Rankaitis’s studio at that time was near the flight path of the Los Angeles International Airport, which provided constant, repetitious views of jets lifting off from the horizon. For Rankaitis, airplanes suggest a balance of opposites: enormous mass and mysterious lightness.


A Democracy of Images: Photographs from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2013