The Artistry Behind My New Photography Exhibition at Château des Ravalet, Cotentin, France
My new exhibition entitled Coast-in-tint, Portrait of a Landscape has received a very warm welcome from visitors in Normandy.
The City of Cherbourg gave me the freedom of choice with regards to subject matter and exhibition venue. I chose to exhibit selected landscapes of the North Cotentin at the celebrated Château des Ravalet in Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, France.
This beautifully proportioned castle boasts a botanical garden, greenhouse and arboretum that bear the French label of excellence “Jardin Remarquable” (Remarkable Garden). It is particularly poignant that my exhibition be shown here, as Remarkable Gardens are a favorite theme of mine.
This unique exhibition offers a new look at the landscapes of North Cotentin.
“Coast-in-tint | Portrait of a Landscape” brings together photographic work from the series “Ferric” and new color work. It presents around fifty prints made with artisanal methods, illustrating the multiple facets of the landscapes of North Cotentin. Noble metals (gold, silver, palladium) give varied tones to the images – sepia, Prussian blue, deep warm black – in complement to handmade color prints. This body of work highlights a “new picturesque”.
How to photograph the quest for exoticism and renewal that characterizes this stretch of coastline?
The results of the technical prowess of a few passionate scholars in the adaptation of numerous plant species from diverse biotopes, such as that of the Canary Islands, have spread to gardens and coastal areas where they consume the landscape with appetite. They offer a new aesthetic in these places preserved from urbanization and rub shoulders with artifacts from the Second World War and Neolithic remains.
However, there is a resilience of nature which allows an attractive continuity of the landscape. The granite and monolithic coastal strip is an impassable border where man cannot leave his mark. Both a vector of transformation and a protected target, the Cotentin coastline still remains desirable.
I has been working with alternative photographic printing processes for several years now, including cyanotype, kallitype and platinotype. I am currently working with a four-color printing process in a wet darkroom which involves multiple layers of color suspended in gum arabic on watercolor paper. An example of this quad-chrome printing process is shown below.
Exploring Historic Photographic Processes with a Modern Vision
From documenting natural and artificial landscapes to exploring ideas of place, my work focuses on our evolving relationship with the environment. The themes of territory, human intervention and transformation guide me in the search for unpredictable and intriguing scenes, bordering on the iconic.
Using large format film cameras, chamber and pinhole, I create unique visual pieces like her panoramic photographs, whose multiple points of view anchor the emotions felt in the memory. The spirit of the place takes precedence over visual perception, evoking encounters, events experienced, and the lights that compose it.
It is in my photographic laboratory that I bring these landscapes to life, experimenting with ancient processes which, like the efforts of botanists, are the fruit of a long continuum of learning.
