JJ Jordan - Traces

Traces began as a way of thinking about gestures directed toward things that are no longer there. I was interested in how the body remembers actions, reaching, stepping, releasing, even when what it responds to has disappeared.

These images show isolated fragments of the body, allowing the gesture to carry the meaning. A hand reaches for fruit that never appears, a foot steps forward without clear ground, a body bends as if reacting to something just outside the frame. Each movement suggests an action that is incomplete or unresolved.

Initially, I explored this through absence alone. Over time, the work shifted. Rather than leaving the objects entirely unseen, I began to introduce them into the prints themselves. Using cyanotype, I embed fragments, feather, branch, sand, stone, rope, directly into the surface of the image.

These elements are not placed where the body would expect them. They appear slightly displaced, out of sync with the gesture. What the body reaches for and what remains in the image no longer align.

This tension became central to the work. The gesture belongs to one moment, the object to another. What is left is a kind of delay, a space between action and consequence.

I like to think that the series refers to something that has already happened, as a progression from the idea of flight, through temptation and crossing, to action and its aftermath.