Untitled (Crotona Park from Thomas Ellis Photograph)

Darrel Ellis

ca. 1990 · Gelatin silver print · Photographs

Ellis turned to photography following the loss of his father, Thomas, a portrait photographer killed in an act of police brutality. After his father’s death, Ellis discovered an archive of his commercial prints and family snapshots dating back to the 1950s. Treating these found photographs as essential source material, the young artist incorporated them into his own practice, creating works like this intergenerational assemblage. Ellis’s mother and sister are visible in the snapshot, which he projected onto the collaged surface of his studio wall. Commingling with ruptured fragments of collage, the ghostly projection evokes a legacy of trauma.

Artist

Darrel Ellis

Date

ca. 1990

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Purchase, Vital Projects Fund Inc. Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2019