Justin Urbach, Frozen Goods I, 2025

2025

Medium

Laser engraving on paper, Fabriano Watercolor Paper, oxide crude steel and 35mm analog photography transfer

Dimensions

50 × 70 cm

Status

In Gallery Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-156283

"Frozen Goods I & II" (2025) are wall-based works made of laser-engraved paper, affixed to steel panels with screws. Originally based on analog photographs, the motifs undergo abstraction through their digital translation and subsequent engraving onto paper. The laser, as an instrument of modern technology, transforms the paper’s grain into a pixelated grid, creating an interplay between the physical properties of the material and its digital interpretation. The motifs processed in "Frozen Goods I & II" include concrete objects, places, and abstract forms that, through this technique, are subjected to radical abstraction. The transition of image objects into the fibrous paper lends the works a new materiality, turning the paper itself into a storage medium. This transformative process alludes to the perpetual state of change inherent in all things. The layering within the works extends beyond mere visual presence, making space itself tangible. No formal spatial distinctions remain – foreground, middle ground, and background dissolve. The image presents itself to the viewer as a vertiginous, disorienting terrain where familiar structures and conventions dissipate into nothingness. This formal dissolution renders the works enigmatic, an experimental field without fixed coordinates.