About PJ Saine

This work is distilled from the everyday images I find around me. I photograph diseased eyes here at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. I also find retinas to be visually fascinating. They are an ideal fabric from which to construct digital quilts.

Photography has a rich tradition of revealing ‘the unseen’. As we view these images, our retinas are privy to a part of the body which is normally hidden. At the same time, this is art which is looking back at us.

The work emerges from black and white digital images which are layered, manipulated, and colored. The patients are anonymous and unidentifiable. My process results in extremely high resolution (650mb) files which are printed on watercolor paper using an Iris giclee’ printer. The finished work is presented as a traditional fine print.

Contrary to the rigorous documentation I perform on the job, my personal images have always been reflections of self. I’ve always photographed from the inside out.

Trained as a ‘straight’ photographer, I’ve never needed to bend physical reality any more than the natural distortion which is part of the photographic process. But now I mine my medical photographs for interesting shapes and patterns which are used to create these multi-colored quilts.