Cliché-verre is French for glass negative. It’s also the name of a process that is a hybrid of both photography and painting.

Wilmington-based photographer Courtney Johnson employed cliché-verre to create the apocalyptic map-like cityscapes featured in her recent series, “Cycle of Cities I: Collapse,” on display at The Gallery at Salt Studio, 805 N. Fourth St.

Johnson is an assistant professor of photography in the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Department of Art & Art History.  She specializes in photographic alternative processes, such as the work she did when she invented the underwater pinhole camera in 2012 (read more on that here)

“Collapse” is part one of Johnson’s nine-part “Cycle of Cities” series “chronicling mythological themes of the rise and fall of cities through the “monomyth” or hero cycle.”  From Johnson’s artist statement:

“‘Cycle of Cities I: Collapse’ explores the death and destruction of cities by fire, water, and explosions. Images refer back to many historical events such as the 2004 Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the Civil War.”

The show opens with a public reception 6 to 9 p.m. Friday Aug. 22, in coordination with Fourth Friday Gallery Nights, a monthly self-guided art crawl throughout Downtown Wilmington’s studios and galleries organized by the Arts Council of Wilmington and New Hanover County.

“Cycle of Cities I: Collapse” hangs through Sept. 20.