ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Solar Relics marks Chris McCaw’s third solo exhibition at Candela Gallery, showcasing his continually evolving, innovative exploration of light, time, and material. The exhibition spotlights new and old works marked by the sun using solar exposure as both medium and process, grounding photography in its most elemental form. With in-camera solarization, overexposure, and experimental techniques, each image becomes an artifact of radiant transformation. Projects on view include Sunburn, Inverse, and Instant, and Versicolor.

Instant and Versicolor are part of a new series of Fujiroids (a color instant film process) that continue McCaw’s exploration of light and material with experimental exposure and color filtration techniques. Using instant print material, a now-obsolete medium, McCaw’s images shift reality beyond the ordinary spectrum and form abstract, landscape-like patterns. Each dye diffusion print is made on location, capturing the unpredictable effects of solar energy in a unique, tangible form.

Inverse builds upon McCaw’s two-decades-long investigation into in-camera solarization, refining the technique to create images where negative and positive tonalities coexist within a single frame. Using custom dark slides and double exposures, McCaw amplifies the contrast between these opposing states, resulting in large-format works highlighting analog photography's enduring authenticity. The series Inverse, one of which was recently collected by the Library of Congress, reflects McCaw's dedication to grounding photography in the direct, physical interaction with light.