80" x 80" grid comprised of one 9" x 9" silver gelatin print, eighty 8" x 8" photocopies, and the burnt remnants of one 9" x 9" silver gelatin print.
Nigredo (tr: "blackness") is the first phase of the Magnum Opus in alchemical literature. It is characterized by a putrefaction of and subsquent release of impurities from a substance as it's distilled to its fundamental state. Though often taken for the literal meaning of the lead-to-gold dichotomic process it is also understood within a process of individuation as a stage of dissolution leading to self-knowledge.