photograms
'Granny's mandalas' 2020 silver gelatin photograms 24x30/30x40 cm (in progress)
'De niña a mujer' 2020 1:1 silver gelatin photograms (in progress)
"Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves." - John Berger - Ways of Seeing
I began looking at women’s underwear from the male viewpoint, wondering particularly about lace and what makes it ’sexy’. Photograms let me see things in - literally - a different light, and in the darkroom I discovered a different dimension of these clothes: a delicate beauty made of intricate floral patterns and dreamy transparencies that has something intimate and liberating in it, more sensual, tactile, three dimensional and personal that the external gaze.
I began looking at women’s underwear from the male viewpoint, wondering particularly about lace and what makes it ’sexy’. Photograms let me see things in - literally - a different light, and in the darkroom I discovered a different dimension of these clothes: a delicate beauty made of intricate floral patterns and dreamy transparencies that has something intimate and liberating in it, more sensual, tactile, three dimensional and personal that the external gaze.
AFTER ATKINS: PETcorso Vita Unique silver gelatin photograms 17.8x24 cm
Anna Atkins' Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions' (1843) was the first ever book illustrated with photographic images. Atkins placed algae and plants directly onto sensitized paper and exposed them to daylight, to produce captivating compositions which merged art and science. This project takes inspiration from these pioneering works to explore contemporary relations to the natural world and to the photographic medium. The photograms are created by hand in the darkroom using the 20th century gelatin silver process. They feature plants and plastic beverage bottles collected in my local woods in Switzerland, along the fitness trail known as Percorso Vita, from which the series gets its name.
