This work is inspired by primary source documents in the form of 150 letters written by the artist’s great-great grandfather, William Garret Fisher, while fighting the American Civil War for the Union. Here, to the right of this text, is a photo of William Garret Fisher, probably taken around the time that he dropped out of school to volunteer to fight for what he thought would be a short stint, but became a 5 year saga, as detailed in his letters home.
 
Each of the five portfolios contains a number of silkscreen prints that combine the graphic beauty of the handwritten letters with photos from the Library of Congress Civil War archive that seem to illustrate Will’s narrative. The silkscreens, made using a technique that makes each print unique, akin to a monotype, are accompanied by digital prints to document the specific letter that relates to the silkscreen.
 
The result of a painter’s approach to silkscreen is a wildly variant edition – each print is similar to the rest, yet different in color and mood. The process of printing used three layers or screens. The first layer of ink was applied using a painterly technique designed to create bands of color and random shapes that depict a horizon in time where memory appears and disappears, and where the ghosts of history sometimes reveal themselves or retreat in darkness. This abstract background speaks to an emotional part of the viewer and poses the question, “What might this be?” The second layer is a half-toned photographic image selected from the Library of Congress archive of Civil War photos chosen because it seems to illustrate something mentioned in Will’s letters. Each photo shows a moment in time from the years 1861-1865, where the soldiers, the generals, the postal workers, the wounded, the gravediggers, the washer woman, even children and animals, all are making eye contact across the generations. The third layer shows the beauty of the handwriting scanned from Will’s letters and is applied in semi-transparent metallic ink to float above the image, shimmering in and out with the shift in angle of the viewer.
 
The 5 sets contain a total of 29 silk screens and 29 digital prints housed in 5 custom digitally printed giant envelopes.

Curator’s note: Dana F. Smith’s vivid, heartfelt and, startling manifestation of her family’s Civil War history brings the invective and violence of the USA’s brutal history into sharp focus; just in time to provide a strident warning about the catastrophic consequences of entering into another civil war. The piece is not only an ample illustration of war time reportage but also engages the viewer in larger ethical issues ranging from enslavement to epigenetic trauma.
 
The project also vibrantly re-imagines and challenges the standard visual tropes of the sepia-toned ‘Ken Burnsian’ romanticism that has erroneously implied (and even insisted) that the Civil War in the United States of America ever really ended. This bold re-presentation was catalyzed and informed by lucid and detailed Civil War-era letters literally handed down over the centuries to finally ‘unrest’ in the capable hands of the artist.
 
Individually paged as an unbound codex The American Civil War Quintet is a profound and tactile immersion in the intimacy of the ritual of personal war-time correspondence. The piece is also a powerful and complete gallery exhibition with comprehensive interpretive material incorporated into the artwork. – Marshall Weber