On the Photography of Tiana Peterson

The crossword puzzle endures. Once relegated along with the comics to a back page of the newspaper, this time-killing “brainteaser” lives online, awaiting letters in type rather than in pencil or the admirable, unerasable pen. Observed from a distance, the artist Tiana Peterson would appear to be another fan of this diversion, earnestly jotting away with a writing utensil, contemplating her progress, and furrowing her brow in mental search for the word that fits the allotted spaces and conforms to the obtuse clue(s) provided by the puzzle's creator. However, close inspection of her finished product reveals not a staggered grid of intersecting words but a modulated collection of marks filling in the spaces where letters should be. Over the past decade Peterson has engaged with two-dimensional representatives of value or play; removing the eagles from dollar bills to re-employ in collages or steaming the “pop-up” forms from children's books, leaving eerie groupings of floating rectangles on their otherwise cheery pages. Similarly, Peterson dispenses with any prescribed rules in “doing” her crosswords, transforming the given space and its poetic juxtapositions to a physical place of action where empty squares are individually filled, earning a different kind of reward upon completion. The grid, usually in the form of graph paper, served as a template in postminimal art, a clinical ground for the charting of ideas and visual systems of notation. Carl Andre's poems (no doubt influenced by the crossword) and Hanne Darboven's symphonic numerical accumulations are two of many examples. Peterson's series titled “Monday-Sunday, repeat” can suggest moody tiling or patterned fabric. Embedded in her busy work is the flicker of a secret behind a structure that's been deliberately filled in or walled up. Some pieces, handled with a lighter touch, appear immolated, like ash that may crumble in your hand. For Tiana Peterson, the crossword is a site to be acted upon-playing the game