NATURAL MAGIC:Experiments IN Photography

Curated by Phillip Roberts,The Bern & Ronny Schwartz Curator of Photography, Bodleian Libraries.

These images are made in my studio using a recipe that I have devised through extensive historical research. The emulsion is coated onto paper, dried and exposed under ultra violet light. The work is made with no plastic or silver. This is a conscious act of environmental activism.

The bespoke frames reference my idea that photography is now free from the square and rectangle format that is dictated by cameras. These works are created as cameraless images and therefore, for me totally free.

‘Photography was invented by a network of chemical experimenters. Little by little, they discovered the photosensitive properties of precious metals and learned to capture images from life on a chemical emulsion of silver nitrate, or iron, or gold, or plant matter.

Today’s digital photography feels a long way from the experiments of the nineteenth century, but an intrepid society of alchemists is reviving the processes of the past and creating new approaches to darkroom photography.’

Dr Phillip Roberts, The Bern & Ronny Schwartz Curator of Photography, Bodleian Libraries.

Natural Magic features work by Megan Ringrose, Nettie Edwards, Karel Doing, Andrés Pardo, and Garry Fabian Miller – artists who have spent a lifetime exploring the chemical potentials of photography.

Link to PRESS The Observer Article by Vanessa Thorpe