Rik Garrett

Rik Garrett began documenting family and friends after receiving a Kodak Disc camera at six years old. They later watched their mother build a darkroom and open her own portrait studio. At the age of 14 they were inspired to pick up the medium in earnest, taking a photography class at school and eventually staging a very slow takeover of their mother’s darkroom. This led to a lifelong love of analog photographic processes, including film, wet plate collodion, and non-silver processes.

Garrett received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has taught at SAIC and Photographic Center Northwest, and has been known to lecture on the history of occult photography.

Garrett’s work regularly involves drawing parallels between the history of spirit photography and related practices, historical texts on magic, and personal life experiences.  Their work has been exhibited extensively in the United States and Europe, and their first monograph, Earth Magic, was published by Fulgur Press in 2014.