Left: Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941), Edith in Panama, Flight Inside, 2003. Unique gold toned salt print on Twin Rocker handmade paper. Collection of Emmet and Edith Gowin
Right: Odilon Redon (French, 1840-1916), The Spider, 1902. Charcoal and black chalk. Thaw Collection
Redon, whose marriage of the mundane and the enigmatic Gowin admires, created a human-animal hybrid in The Spider. An arachnid with a woman’s face grins within its web, as secure as the pupil in an eye.
In Edith in Panama, Flight Inside, 2003, two negatives are combined to represent Gowin’s wife, Edith, as a dark silhouette inhabited by the illuminated flight paths of moths.