Uneven Graining
This exhibition invites viewers to reimagine the conventional darkroom photographic print —a medium traditionally celebrated for its pristine surfaces, clean edges, and two-dimensional presentation. This work pushes against these conventions, embracing imperfection and exploring the sculptural potential of photography. In rejecting the rigidity of traditional display, I open a dialogue between the image, the object, and the environment in which it exists.
The works on display are handmade silver gelatin prints, crafted with an intentional departure from the sterile precision often associated with analogue photography. Dust, marks, bends, and organic irregularities become part of the image’s language, reflecting a raw authenticity that mirrors the subject matter itself. By physically manipulating the paper, bending and collaging it into sculptural forms, I invite the viewer to encounter these prints not as flat surfaces, but as objects with depth and texture, echoing the dimensionality of the natural world they depict.
Displayed in the fantastic window space of The Traction Project, these sculptural prints interact dynamically with their surroundings. Reflected light dapples across their surfaces, mirroring the shifting tones found beneath a canopy. As light and humidity fluctuate, the objects subtly change, embodying the living, breathing qualities of nature. Just as trees grow, decay, and adapt to their environments, these works resist stasis. They transform, offering a continually evolving experience for viewers over the duration of the exhibition.
The choice to focus on trees and wood is deliberate. The photographic paper is derived from trees, bringing the medium full circle to its material origins. By blurring the boundaries between the 2D and 3D, by subverting expectations of what a photograph should be, I hope to challenge how we see not just what's included in frame but what's been excluded.
Uneven Graining marks a return to more conceptual work following a year-long documentary project on young farmers in North Devon. Inspired by time spent in nature, this represents an evolution from observation to interpretation.
