Evocative of watery depths and weird dreams, this series of large scale cyanotype prints marks a prolific summer of printmaking. Working in a greenhouse dubbed the “cyanoterrarium”, the size of these pieces required an elaborate process of laying out items on the sensitized paper at night, due to the fact that they were too large to transport, and waiting for sunrise to activate the exposure. The washing process was done outside as well, using a garden hose.
Rooted in drawing, these oversized hybrid prints/photograms start out as small sketches where I develop my concepts, motifs, and patterns. One of the earliest and most common uses of cyanotype was in making blueprints (hence the name), and so I think about how my work resembles those intricate, mechanical drawings. But instead of diagrams for buildings or machines, I’m laying out the plans for imaginary locations and strange mechanisms. I look for and/or create stencils, along with miscellaneous bric-a-brac, and hand drawn “negatives” to serve as analogs to the lines and marks of the original drawings. Those objects and drawings are then laid out on the sensitized paper to create the “blueprint”. Since the process is in reverse, I need to visualize how solid objects leave white shadows, translucent objects leave shades of color, and open areas take on the deep cyan or blackened silver. In some of the pieces, I integrate drawing and relief printing directly onto the paper before it is sensitized, creating an extra layer of detail, with the ink acting both as a resist and as visible marks on the finished print.
Evocative of watery depths, imaginary galaxies, and mysterious maps, these luminous images create an immersive dimension with their own rules of scale and space. Like dreams, these objects seem familiar but weird; letters that don’t exist, mutated forms floating in dark space or deep water, math problems that don't add up, and overlapping patterns that follow their own strange logic of space and dimension. Each print is a world seen through a microscope or telescope, glowing worlds that exist out of sight alongside ours.
Basking in the “cyanoterrarium”
Fully processed outside
