Andrea Selwood: Home Science - recent photograms
My personal history of coastal living and previous works references to water provides some 'back story' to this exhibition. More recently, my ideas were stimulated by 'Vessels', a kinetic installation of light on water by Daniel K Brown (City & Sea Museum c.2010). I am also interested in applied photography since finding school textbook examples of scientifically recorded phenomena such as the time-based capture of the distance between lightning strikes.
These photo-based works bypassed the camera and involved direct 'drawing with light' during a brief period of darkroom experiment. I generated and developed this imagery using the photogram technique starting with a jam jar and experimenting with water effects. Here, the object is positioned on light sensitive paper, exposed, then chemically processed. During production I explored different light sources, viewpoints and angles of projection along with sequences of a movement narrative.
Keeping with this "low tech" and makeshift approach, I staged light refractions incorporating glass domestic vessels, filled with water, to operate as a lens, prism and condenser. A torches beam was then passed through the vessel at a certain angle to the paper, forming light refractions of various shapes. Essentially, I was distorting the apparatus of the photographic enlarger which involved trial and error plus an element of chance, accident or the unexpected.
The sequence or narrative behind these images evolved intuitively during the process of making the work. The ambiguity of the figurative forms might point to the different stages of an organic, chemical reaction or equally, they could be of animal, human anatomical or biological origin. Gestural movement and ephemeral marks made by the refracted light was for me, similar to my experience of watercolour painting.
At post production stage, the computer has permitted me the freedom of presentation, colour and scale. The "one-off" and perhaps unrepeatable production of the photogram print, was liberated by the commercial C-type photographic process (Lambda print).
Andrea Selwood - June, 2012
My personal history of coastal living and previous works references to water provides some 'back story' to this exhibition. More recently, my ideas were stimulated by 'Vessels', a kinetic installation of light on water by Daniel K Brown (City & Sea Museum c.2010). I am also interested in applied photography since finding school textbook examples of scientifically recorded phenomena such as the time-based capture of the distance between lightning strikes.
These photo-based works bypassed the camera and involved direct 'drawing with light' during a brief period of darkroom experiment. I generated and developed this imagery using the photogram technique starting with a jam jar and experimenting with water effects. Here, the object is positioned on light sensitive paper, exposed, then chemically processed. During production I explored different light sources, viewpoints and angles of projection along with sequences of a movement narrative.
Keeping with this "low tech" and makeshift approach, I staged light refractions incorporating glass domestic vessels, filled with water, to operate as a lens, prism and condenser. A torches beam was then passed through the vessel at a certain angle to the paper, forming light refractions of various shapes. Essentially, I was distorting the apparatus of the photographic enlarger which involved trial and error plus an element of chance, accident or the unexpected.
The sequence or narrative behind these images evolved intuitively during the process of making the work. The ambiguity of the figurative forms might point to the different stages of an organic, chemical reaction or equally, they could be of animal, human anatomical or biological origin. Gestural movement and ephemeral marks made by the refracted light was for me, similar to my experience of watercolour painting.
At post production stage, the computer has permitted me the freedom of presentation, colour and scale. The "one-off" and perhaps unrepeatable production of the photogram print, was liberated by the commercial C-type photographic process (Lambda print).
Andrea Selwood - June, 2012
Photogram by Andrea Selwood
Andrea Selwood - Artst Information
Education
Education
- 1991 - Graduated with a Diploma of Fine Arts, Honours (Painting), School of Art, Otago Polytechnic
- 1993 - Awarded the Con Hutton Scholarship
- 1993-95 - Master of Fine Arts Degree, School of drawing and Painting, Edinburgh College of Art
- 2001 - Diploma Secondary Teaching, Dunedin Teachers College
- 1995-2000 - Returned from OE to reside in Dunedin
- 1999 - Birth of first daughter
- 2002 - Moved to Wellington, South Coast, Full-time secondary teaching
- 2007 - Birth of second daughter
- 1993 - Practising visual artist
- 1994 - Received a professional development grant, Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council to document slide lecture contemporary and emerging artists in Scotland toured NZ art schools
- 1996 - Secondary school art teaching, part-time
- 2002 - Full-time teaching Visual Arts; Senior Design, Painting and Photography
- 1997 - Solo Show, 'Drive-by' shopfront installation, Dunedin
- 1998 - Group show, '+,- = e' part installation featured 'Southern Lights' exhibition exchange Dunedin Public Art Gallery/ Edinburgh City Centre, 15Oth Anniversary of European Settlement in Otago
- - Solo Tour, '+,- = e' touring public galleries, lower South Island; Southland, Eastern Southland, Forrester (Oamaru), Asburton
- - Exhibitions documented in publications; 'Southern Lights - 150 years of landscape art' Otago Early Settlers/ Dunedin Public Art Gallery Art periodicals (Art New Zealand, Spring Vol.,1999 - essay by Susan Ballard)
- 1997-2000 - Solo show, 'Athenaeum Project' reactivating/ locating a site-based installation Dunedin Public Art Gallery
- 2009 - Part-time visual arts practice and continuing exhibitions record
