It was not until 1918 that the fees were settled and the Santa Maria returned to Chicago. The Santa Maria was finally headed back to Chicago in 1917, but was impounded in Canada because its owners could not pay wharf charges. Meanwhile, the Pinta and Nina had been towed back to the Chicago docks. The ship was scheduled to stop at ports along the East Coast the backers thought that curious sightseers would buy tickets in droves to tour the ships.īut it didn’t work out that way – almost no one showed up. The Santa Maria made it to Boston, where a crew from Harvard University took over. The Pinta and Nina nearly sank and had to be beached on the shore of Lake Erie. Near Milwaukee, the ships ran into rough seas on Lake Michigan. The ships were supposed to sail from Chicago to the new canal, then on to San Francisco. They drew tourists, but the city let the ships deteriorate.īy 1913, the three ships were in terrible condition, but it was decided to use them for the opening of the Panama Canal. It mimics the process we are going through as a society to reconsider ideas that we’ve held for too long.In 1901, they were turned over to the city of Chicago. It’s through this technique that the image is being reevaluated. My direct disruption of the print is a physical representation of the shift that is happening around these cultural symbols. Just as Christopher Columbus is no longer the symbol of the valiant discovery of America, the cowboy is no longer the symbol of the idealized man the police are no longer a symbol of safety marriage, two kids, a dog, and a mortgage is no longer the symbol of the American Dream. I’m using the image of the ship as a stand-in for similar cultural icons, figures, and ideas that are being dismantled in our society. I found the most quintessential portrait of a Spanish galleon ship for this series – one illustration to fulfill the archetype of the brave explorer. Parts of the image are omitted completely. Parts of the image are incorrect, the colors are wrong, there isn’t enough detail, the ink is layered and bled and blurred. Parts of the image are presented accurately. This technique takes an image and fractures it. The process feels like painting, each pass through the printer creates another set of marks that I evaluate and calculate the next move accordingly. The combination of inks creates a truly irreproducible product - an inherently unique print. I send the same paper four, five, or six times through the printer, each time repositioning and removing different ink cartridges. I manipulate the paper as it feeds through the rollers, holding the paper so it can’t advance, stalling it for a few seconds or a few minutes, wrenching it backwards, pulling it quickly forwards again – over and over until the error indicator light tells me I need to unplug the printer, restart it, and try again. By carefully replacing and rearranging the computer chips and ink cartridges in my photo printer, I can confuse the printer into believing it’s creating an accurate image. This body of work, which I’m referring to as “the ships”, began with a process I’ve been developing over the last three years. And just like many other cultural icons, it’s being reassessed, amended, and transformed. And 500 years later, we are living here in America, and we have Christopher Columbus to thank. They formed a peaceful relationship with savage people and taught them civility. This image was perpetuated throughout my youth in school and in movies – a trio of massive, fantastic ships, leaving on an expedition to the unknown. It was cemented into my brain, and went alongside the narrative of the heroic journey that Christopher Columbus took in 1492 to discover the New World. “Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria” is a phrase I heard hundreds of times in elementary school. He attended Azusa Pacific University (BFA) Claremont Graduate University (MFA.) This is the artist’s third solo show with the gallery. A response to the collective cultural amnesia about the contingency of historical memory, the effect is one of disorientation – both historical and immediate – in the face of radical transformation.Įvan Trine (b.1988) lives and works in Long Beach, CA. His newest series “Ships” utilizes the iconic image of Columbus’ sailing trio - the Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria - as a stand-in for a set of American cultural symbols that are currently being contested and re-evaluated for their historical whitewashing.īy physically altering the print as it leaves the printer, Trine imitates the process the viewer engages with and ultimately expunges culturally-entrenched internalized ideas, values and patterns of behavioral modes currently being dismantled by and within contemporary society. Evan Trine’s new body of work continues his exploration into using traditional photographic tools to manipulate a variety of recognizable source materials.
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