My entries for this exhibition at the D31 Art Gallery in Doncaster opening April 22nd are on display and online.
These four works are printed on photo rag paper which suits the subject well. They are made from the original lumen photograms I created during the two years of lockdown periods in the the spring. Confined to small spaces one could appreciate whatever flora and fauna was around us continuing to be without restrictions.
See Lockdown Lumens post for details of how these were made.
I am thrilled that all four of my entries into this exhibition have been selected from over 7300 entries.
Weathered Door – Pavelka House
This is a direct positive print made from photographic paper in an 8×10 camera. The image is unique, there is no negative so cannot be reproduced.
It was taken during my residency at the Willa Cather Foundation in 2019.
A very difficult medium to master, with a lot of technical processes to get right. It worked perfectly for this one.
Contemplation by the Window I
Poverty breeds time. Time to contemplate.
Contemplation by the Window IISummer Evening from the train
Modern trains are clinical, cold, uninviting spaces. A languid, warm, time-extending, British summer evening is one of the most inviting spaces. The yearning for one from the other.
It’s all coming through. Another call I entered this time with the New York Center for Photographic Arts. Just got the notification that this image of mine has won one of the 3 First Place awards.
I am delighted that two works have been selected for this exhibition – LET THERE BE – opening on September 25th at Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati. The exhibition is a part of a series of five exhibits launching the gallery’s 17th season.
“For this exhibit 58 artists from 21 states and the countries of Armenia, Australia, England, Germany, Italy, and New Zealand submitted 247 works. Seventeen works by 12 artists from 8 states, and the countries of Armenia, England, and Italy were selected by a blind jury process for presentation in the gallery and the Manifest Exhibition Annual publication.”
These images were created from the reclaimed negative of instant print, peel-apart film (old Polaroid type). The negative portion is normally not re-usable and discarded, but if something has a semblance of an image on it I’ll use it somehow. The prints didn’t really work due to light fogging or poor processing, so I did the reclaiming some time later just as an exercise so was a bit sloppy, dismissed them and put them away.
Come lock down, sorting through my negs, I found them, scanned them and got a sort of funky, interesting image, with stains from the dried chemical goop, colour shifts, scratches and bleach marks. Shortly after, I received the late call extension for this exhibition and from the theme these images immediately came to mind.
It was hard work getting any sort of colour balance from the material when scanning but from the result felt that they were something special.
Manifest Gallery – INHPA 8th International Photography Annual.
Manifest Gallery represents many artistic disciplines with calls throughout the year. They also produce several award winning publications and one of those is the INPHA series. This is open to all lens based photographic works. I entered this at the beginning of the year and am super delighted to have this image selected for publication amongst the 63 works from 41 artists around the world out of an entry of 1108 images from 220 artists.
The image is entitled ‘Town or Country – Still trapped inside’ and is in fact the work I entered into The London Group Open 2019 but was not successful this time, so I am very glad it made it to this. The annual is due to be published mid 2021.
The lock-down period enabled me to go through my scanned film catalogue and I have been responding to Open Calls. Most of these are in the United States where there are a number of Photographic Centres that run continual exhibitions through open calls. They are fantastic opportunities to get your work publicised and exhibited. There does not seem to be the same in the UK, at least not regular with a permanent exhibition space.
The first I entered was with the Midwest Center for Photography http://www.mwcponline.com. They have some terrific themes that fit a lot of my work and they work so hard to come up with many opportunities throughout the year and the quality is excellent.
