Nika McKagen

︎︎︎ index
︎︎︎ info
︎︎︎ ephemera
Nika McKagen

︎︎︎ index
︎︎︎ info
︎︎︎ephemera




Rift, 12x16” silver gelatin print Karst (superficial), 7x9” silver gelatin print shade #1 4x5” silver gelatin print Central Channels, 2x3” pigment print, graphite Possible Fatherhand, 4x6" archival pigment print nostos, sixty 8x10” silver gelatin prints, installation size 5.5’x7’ Arrangement of Material, 5x7” silver gelatin print untitled (charon), digital photograph abyss, 9x12” silver gelatin print Cave Tainaron Where Black Smoke Billowed, two 20x24” silver gelatin prints perhaps a visitation tonight?, 6x9” pigment print Mountains as of 7/28/2024, receipt paper photographs Hesychia, digital photograph Elevation and abasement I, 4x6” pigment print, graphite, tape Elevation and abasement II, 4x6” pigment print The Sun (seen in the underworld), digital photograph Rhadamanthus, 5x5” silver gelatin print i saw the other things down below II, 4x6” silver gelatin print i saw the other things down below I, 4x6” silver gelatin print Hoyt's Email Signature, 2x4" silver gelatin print Possible Fatherback, 4x6" archival pigment print Time (“the punctum is: he is going to die”), 4x5” silver gelatin print “i…through the night…the fire whence…i saw…” (after Herakles), 16x20” silver gelatin print untitled (Father’s Photograph), 4x4” pigment print Twin Trees, 4x6" silver gelatin print Possible Fatherfront, 4x6” pigment print After Marosa, 3x4” pigment print, graphite untitled (ladder), 4x5" reworked archival photograph Avernus, 20x24” silver gelatin print Profile of Drop, 4x5” silver gelatin print

Karst
2025

Karst considers the idea of a katabasis, a mythic descent into the subterranean underworld, as an allegory for exploration into memory and the subconscious. This project documents cave systems in the Appalachian Mountains in Southwestern Virginia, USA that my late father and I explored as a child. In 2024, twenty years after his death, I descended back into these caves. Karst follows a loose narrative of this katabasis into the subterranean world, and consequently into memory. The resulting photographs act as evidence of mythic, poetic, and subconscious spaces that explore the visual reconstructions we create while trying to understand how time and depth work in tandem.

Working in the darkroom is an emulation of being inside of a cave: it’s dark, wet, erupting with sensation, and produces some kind of holy imagery. Much of this work is produced by printing on expired silver gelatin paper, scarred by light over the course of its lifetime, allowing the imagery that etches into it reflect the dim conditions of the underworld. This project also features works utilizing handmade abaca paper, silver nitrate emulsion, and reprinted archival ephemera. Karst highlights the thin connective tissue that divides this world from the supernatural world, and examines the obsessive urge to go underground in order to confront grief, desire, and divinity.

Index of Materiality (download)

Cave Tainaron Where Black Smoke Billowed, two 20x24" silver gelatin prints, wood Cave Tainaron Where Black Smoke Billowed, back The Fork in the River of Hades that does not Exist, four 4x5" silver gelatin prints, wood shade #1, 4x6" silver gelatin print, artist frame Transgression, 16x16” silver gelatin collage, artist frame The Chamber of the Dactyls, 14x20” silver gelatin collage, artist frame “O unknown nothingness”, two 4x5" silver gelatin prints, artist frame

installation + object photographs
Backspace Gallery, Madison WI, 2025