Hierophanies - Artist Statement

“Hierophanies” — meaning 'manifestations of the sacred’, from the Greek ἱερός (sacred, holy) and φαίνειν (to reveal, to bring to light) — is an ongoing series of pyrograms that focuses on the intersection of memory, materiality, and transformation.  

“Inspired by Carl Jung’s works on the collective unconscious, I engage in a genuine act of ritual, seeing the darkroom as a sanctuary where spiritual and psychological themes merge.

Using camera-less experimental techniques, I burn materials such as incense, wax, and sacred wood directly onto silver gelatin paper, employing fire as both a destructive and generative force.

Certain scents and visuals can activate specific neurotransmitters, unlocking unconscious memories and triggering a primal response deep within our collective psyche. These materials, chosen for their archetypal and sensory significance, echo the sedimented layers of cultural and spiritual history. 

Each pyrogram serves as an index— a material trace of an ephemeral dialogue, the residue of presence, capturing the limbo between presence and absence, material and immaterial, the seen and the unseen.

The resulting images, scanned in macro detail, reveal intricate, evocative patterns reminiscent of cosmic landscapes, inner visions, and microbiological structures. They parallel terrestrial formations and the stratifications of personal and collective memory.  

In these works, the act of combustion becomes a visual offering to time, inviting the viewer to reflect on the points of connection between the impermanence of being and the eternity of life. Because the opposite of death is not life, but rebirth. What remains is neither purely material nor entirely absent. It’s a liminal territory, a passage between states, a record of the invisible forces that shape and dissolve our presence in the world, holding the promise of renewal.

Martina Margaux

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