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Fresh in the Flat Files: Christopher Colville

photo-eye Gallery Fresh in the Flat Files: Works from Christopher Colville Delaney Hoffman
This week we're highlighting some beautiful loose prints that have recently arrived in the gallery from represented artist Christopher Colville. Colville is known for his spontaneous compositions made by exploring the possibilities of gunpowder as a photographic tool. Learn more about this process-oriented work and see what's available to view below!
Christopher Colville, Stilbon II, Contact print on direct positive paper, 4x5", Unique, $1100

This week we are ecstatic to share prints from Christopher Colville that are now available for viewing at photo-eye Gallery!

Christopher Colville is an artist and educator born and now based in Phoenix, Arizona. From the beginnings of his photographic career, Colville has been interested in the material aspects of the medium that have the potential to transcend traditional representation or pictorial photographs. 

The images from the second portfolio of FLUX is comprised of camera-less imagery made between 2011 and 2020. In place of the negative, which is traditionally used in contact printing to produce an image on photo-sensitive paper, Colville utilizes the light and heat generated from gunpowder to expose the material instead, resulting in unique artworks that speak to the inherent coexistence of creation and destruction.

Christopher Colville, Untitled Triptych, 2020, Contact print on silver gelatin paper, 7.5 x 17", Unique, $4000

Many of these pieces included in this collection are the result of the artist's meditations on the natural world. After moving to Phoenix full time, Colville felt compelled to engage in the tradition of landscape (both terrestrial and interstellar) representation in Southwest, but wanted to do so in a way that broke the traditional framework.

The desert offered material as well as aesthetic inspiration for the artist. Discarded targets and shotgun shells found outdoors at community shooting ranges provided conceptual fodder for the project, Beyond Reckoning, and Colville would take breaks from this conceptually loaded work for the material examinations included in FLUX 1 and 2. These images are entirely centered on process and experimentation and feature invented constellations, horizon lines, and organic curves created with modified blades.


Explore more prints from the series below and pop into the Gallery to see these incredible works for yourself — we even have a Virtual Visit option for our friends outside of New Mexico.



Christopher Colville, #14 From Constellations, 2011, Contact print on silver gelatin paper, 4.5 x 3", Unique, $1000


Christopher Colville, Untitled W.O.F 15-41, Contact print on silver gelatin paper, 8 x 10", Unique, $1450


Christopher Colville, Untitled W.O.F .09-07-13, Contact print on silver gelatin paper, 6 x 4", Unique, $1250



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Print costs are current up to the time of posting and are subject to change.

photo-eye Gallery is proud to represent Christopher Colville.

For more information, and to purchase prints by Christopher Colville, please contact Gallery Director Anne Kelly or Gallery Assistant Delaney Hoffman, or you may also call us at 505-988-5152 x202