In PRIME, Zaman seeks to subvert the conventions of still life photography, offering an exploration of the tension between attempts at preservation and the ephemeral beauty of decay. While traditional still life imagery often fixates on subjects at their peak, Zaman's innate curiosity deliberately veers from these well-trodden paths. Instead, they redirect the lens towards unearthing moments of transition, growth, and the rejection of social norms, revealing a poignant beauty in the oft-neglected moments of existence.
The materiality of each sculptural photograph has come to exist through the layering of ink on paper, resin, the crystallization of the print in a mineral bath, then drying in the environment, with both additive and subtractive processes creating a unique object. The photograph reveals itself in between salt like crystals and resin, and the multiplicity of moments past culminates in the present. The works exist in a liminal space that illuminates the tension between preservation and decay.
Images in Prime are repeated but never the same. A shell, an oyster, a hand, are depicted here. Each one abstracted depending on the moments they came into contact with the elements of water and air, washed over in the tide of the studio basin. Delicate or solid at the end of the process, the artworks are the way they are because Zaman saw the potential of their beauty to be inherent in their process of creation.
Born in Sydney, Australia, Zaman now lives and works in New York City. Their art practice centers exploring identity beyond the binary through intimate portraiture, still life, and experimentation throughout the photographic mediums.
