Essay by Amie Potsic
A mother nursing her newborn, religious ritual in a family home, storm winds on the ocean, exploding edifices, Nazis on the march, and silhouetted dancers moving in unison. These are just some of the visual ingredients and building blocks creating the structure and narratives in John Singletary’s Traces - a video installation, book, and photographic journey through time, meaning, and purpose.
Combined with a haunting instrumental score and the intermittent voices of individuals speaking about impactful and painful moments in life, Singletary’s collage of black and white imagery speaks to the many conflicting aspects of life experience. In search of meaning and the boundaries of artistic expression through one’s chosen media, the artist has co-mingled his profound interests in photography, philosophy, collaboration, and human connection.
Traces investigates the implications of human evolution through three distinct stages of life. Singletary’s imagery begins with the first stage encompassing the origins of life, birth, childhood, and beauty. In these images, we are introduced to a view of the beginning of our existence as positive, loving, and joyful. Singletary then moves to a second stage of life experience fraught with anxiety, destruction, and despair. As one grows into adulthood, one sees and must process the unfairness, violence, and failures of the world around us.
The imagery referencing this process includes fascist dictators, explosions, scenes of desolation, and sexuality. Traces reminds the viewer of their own desires, struggles, and pain in this second cycle of life. The third and final stage is viewed through a lens of death, resolution, and conclusion with imagery ending in tombstones and the conjuring of memory. Singletary moves through these three stages of life experience to awaken a sense of shared humanity and compassion.
In the context of this desire for empathy, Existentialism’s search for meaning in a meaningless world drives Singletary’s image making and selection. While both attracted and repelled by religious ideology, the artist is compelled to seek answers in the cacophony of religious, cultural, and political systems imposed on us by history and contemporary society. Colliding imagery of the past, present, and the imagined, Singletary layers human behavior and purpose in disjointed and unsettling combinations, evoking anxiety, fear, and existential dread.
In addition to the layers of imagery, Singletary overlaps a musical score and a variety of spoken voices sharing intimate stories and reflections on their lives. By listening to and reading their narratives, we bear witness to their suffering and celebrations as stand ins for our own.
Seeing ourselves in the stories shared by each individual, it is implied that we too can create meaning, despite feeling adrift. Singletary seems to be sharing his visual impressions and the intimate stories of those interviewed as a means of seeking the human connection he fears can be lost in the second stage of life. Is this questioning of purpose and becoming unmoored something to accept, rail against, or relish?
That question was at the heart of the experimental filmmakers’ works whose black and white masterpieces inform Singletary’s vision. Many Dada and Surrealist filmmakers approached the absurd and Existentialism through unconventional editing and aesthetic choices. Like Ingmar Bergman, Singletary chooses to create very long takes where the action is slowed down for deeper contemplation. Similarly, with desolate landscapes, limited dialogue, and a penchant for confronting death, the artist approaches the formation of meaning with Bergman’s intensity and authenticity. Incorporating strategies for conveying the passage of time and memory from films like Citizen Kane, Singletary deftly uses collage, montage, and visual cues to create a non-linear stream of consciousness. The artist’s use of historical footage placed alongside imagery he shot himself creates a flashback effect familiar to us from these cinematic classics.
Read the entirety of Amie Potsic's essay in John Singletary's Traces.
John Singletary
John Singletary is a photographer and multimedia artist based in Philadelphia, PA. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography from The University of the Arts. His work has been collected by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Center for Fine Art Photography as well as other institutional and private collections.
Amie Potsic
Amie Potsic is the CEO and Principal Curator of Amie Potsic Art Advisory as well as an accomplished photographer and installation artist. She has held faculty appointments at the University of California at Berkeley and the San Francisco Art Institute and been a guest lecturer at the International Center of Photography, Tyler School of Art, and the Delaware Contemporary.
