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Pandemic distractions, 2020
Chemigrams
In March 2020, when the world came to a standstill, I began to think about my photographs differently than before. I had few subjects available, no opportunity to travel, no models. But I had a lot of time. Time and leisure. For other thoughts, for possibilities unknown to me, for new methods, for experiments. Photographs without subjects came into being. Pictures came into being. Subjective, detached from any objective reference points and triggered by interactions between light, paper, chemistry and my intuition. Images as objects in themselves. Distractions from the pandemic. Pandemic distractions.
Experimentation with photochemistry and photographic paper, resulting in a host of visual effects and themes, describes the rough direction of the work. The photographs presented are a combination of photographs taken without a camera and the influence of photographic material by the techniques from painting. The images are literally chemistry paintings, chemigrams. As a process, chemigrams were developed in the 50-ies by Pierre Cordier. Technically, such paintings follow from the fact that the silver of black and white photographic papers oxidizes due to the action of developer and fixer, leaving different colored discolorations and stains depending on the variance and duration of this action. It is left to the artist to determine the temporal and the spatial behind. All paintings done in this way are unique. My adaptation of the process was also in the inclusion of acrylic paints. The images made in this way completely by hand, I transferred in a further step in digital form as a scan, to finally bring it back to paper as FineArt Pigment Print.