In Liquid Memory: Reflections on Life's Transience

There are no changes made to the colours, no retouching or special effects applied to the image in post-production. From the very beginning I aim to set new parameters on research by restricting myself to the techniques of analog photography used since 1850; inspired by pioneers of photography such as Henry Peach Robinson, Édouard Baldus and Gustave Le Gray.
 

The original ‘Swarm’ series explores the subject of butterflies underwater in a hyper-real and painterly aesthetic created through interacting with the water's mechanics to paint the subject in light.  It acts as a reflection on life and mortality and how it is fleeting, beautiful and ultimately, tragic. The deep blues of these rare specimens against the black void of the water, with the bubble symbolising mortality in a vanitas for the modern day exploring the frailty of nature in an entirely new way.

I started to further explore these themes in early 2014 with this new body of work titled ’Transparency of a dream’.  A particular conversation with a curator was especially in mind, one from ten years ago in which the reproducible capacity of photography - its force and its failing, was scrutinised. I was provoked by the notion that a painting is intrinsically more valuable than a photograph primarily because of its singular uniqueness. To counter this perception I presented this series of one-off transparencies printed only as a single edition artwork in an attempt to challenge the ideas concerning the spiritual and economic valuation of artworks and to create an exciting tension between their individual present and relinquished, reproducible past.

These differ greatly from the original 'Swarm' works; here an original scene was captured on a single 8 x 10 inch film plate with a parent butterfly specimen; these plates were then annotated and stored for several months until their children were born and matured, these siblings were then reshot over the top of the original plates. Creating a dream like sensation of descendants dancing with one another; something in nature that never occurs. These artworks differed with their appearance of sheer fluttering delicacy, ghost like scenes enabled by creating time delayed sculptural scenes underwater with painstaking intricacy, each piece is not only a unique physical entity but embodies an unrepeatable aesthetic efflorescence; representing the singular, ghostly event of artistic consummation performed through painterly liquid mechanics. 

Original like a sketch or painting, these one-off artworks reverse the conventional parameters of photographic works. Blurring the lines between sculpture, painting and photography. Existing only as a single piece of 8 x 10 inch acetate and one unique edition print.

Captured on 8 x 10 inch analogue film plates, each piece is not only a unique physical entity but embodies an unrepeatable moment of aesthetic efflorescence; representing the singular, ghostly event of artistic consummation performed through painterly liquid mechanics. 

Original like a sketch or painting, these one-off artworks reverse the conventional parameters of photographic works. Blurring the lines between sculpture, painting and photography. Existing only as a single piece of 8 x 10 inch acetate and one unique edition print.

A selection of these works were exhibited at the ‘Death of the dream’ exhibition in 2017 with Dellasposa Gallery, London. Each was presented as a unique Fuji Crystal Archive DuraTrans™ print sized at 8 x 10 inches matching the original transparency, framed in black cotton velvet with AR & UV museum glass, with a remote dimmable balanced backlight. You can view the gallery installation here.