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Born in 1717 2017

Klea McKenna works in total darkness to make “photographic rubbings” – photographic images made through touch rather than through a camera. Her process begins with light-sensitive photographic paper, which she hand embosses into surfaces in the landscape; from cross-sections of old trees to cracks in the earth. Then she exposes light to the imprinted paper, fixing a detailed image of the patterns and scars of her subjects. In Born in 1717, McKenna uses four pieces of photographic paper to depict a 300-year-old Incense Cedar tree that grew in Northern California.