J. Jason Lazarus featured in photography publication

J. Jason Lazarus is a term instructor in photography, a computer systems analyst, and the darkroom labs manager for the Communications and Journalism Department in the College of Liberal Arts. He is also a photographer, and takes a special interest in alternative processes.

Recently, Lazarus was featured in an interview at Catalyst, a site dedicated to photographic creatives, for two bodies of work, Emblem and Artifice and Western Consumption. 

Emblem and Artifice finds its origins seven years ago, after Lazarus took a workshop with Christina Z. Anderson on chemigram. Chemigram is a photographic process that uses resists painted on top of silver gelatin photo paper that are then then etched away through the development process, creating unique abstract compositions where the artist actively manipulates the prints mid-process. 

After the workshop, Lazarus went home and grabbed a box of Kodabromide paper. He noticed the expiration date: Aug. 1, 1945. 

Knowing that this date had to be significant, Lazarus looked into World War II history and discovered that the paper expired five days before the Hiroshima bombing. As he worked on his initial prints, he remembered his childhood when he lived in Germany, and how the history of WWII was a different experience for him than from his later American friends. It wasn’t something to complain about in history class. It was a series of painful lessons.

The series explores how symbols are “perhaps the most powerful relics of WWII,” and how their misuse had led to an ignorance of “context and painful memories.” It contains pieces titled "Executive Order 9066, Camp Triangles, Third Reich," and “'Arbeit Macht Frei' - Work Makes You Free - Third Reich," among others. Lazarus struggled in their creation because of the historical weight they carry, and he had a lot of discussions with fellow artists  about them.

The delicate procedure of "Emblem and Artifice," of which Lazarus told Catalyst, “there’s only so much you can control in the chemigram process,” which involves altering chemicals on light-sensitive paper, logically led him to "Western Consumption." Both series encouraged Lazarus to “embrace happenstance chaos, and unpredictability.” For "Western Consumption," each print took him at least four hours, he told Catalyst. 

"Western Consumption" is a series printed in the mordançage process where darkroom prints are altered in a way that lifts the print surface, creating fragile veils. The series confronts the idea of “‘Progress, as we like to call it.” But this so-called progress has left “the American West a dump site for yesterday’s best intentions.” The series is filled with landscape images riddled with ominous veils, all in black-and-white. Lazarus explores how our resources have been outstretched, how “urban sprawl devours what is left of pristine wilderness,” and how climate change and floods decimate “the last records of a land once full of infinite splendor.”

He asks, “When we think of the West, how should we define it, and where should we place value for it?” as his photographs contemplate what had been left alone and, seemingly, what is able to be destroyed.

"Western Consumption" echoes Lazarus’s feelings about Alaska, especially the interior which can sometimes encourage “your work to not evolve, become stagnant, and move at a snail’s pace.” Despite the isolation, Lazarus holds community and collaboration dear. These aspects, often ignored in Alaskan life, give him the “opportunity to grow as an artist and gain new perspectives.” 

Teaching at UAF has had no small part in his desire for community and collaboration. He jokes during his Catalyst interview he likes to have “stories to bring back” to his students to “excite them in the darkroom,” especially when his students “create work that [have] easily surpassed” his. 

So much of his advice to students comes directly from "Art & Fear," a book on artmaking by David Bayles. However, his work throughout the United States keep him and his students busy. He hopes to find time to start homebrewing, and has taken an interest in homecooking after COVID-19 realities have restricted his ability to travel. 

Lazarus’s image, "Western Consumption," was named one of Analog Forever Magazine’s top 50 Analog Images of 2020, and will be on display at Rarefied Light, the largest traveling juried photography exhibition, next month at UAF. His work can be found at: Obscura Works.