Degrees by Odette England - Exhibition Catalog by Hatton Gallery

DEGREES by Odette England

October 28 - December 11

HAT TON GALLERY Visual Arts Building Colorado state University

CENTER FOR FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY

DEGREES

by Odette England

Released to accompany the exhibition Degrees

October 28 – December 11, 2021 HATTON GALLERY

Curators: Hamidah Glasgow, Executive Director, Center for Fine Ar t Photography Silvia Minguzzi, Director of the Hatton Galler y & Digital Per forming Space and catalog designer Intern: Amy Barkley, Executive A ssis tant to the Facult y Council, CSU Work-Study : Keri Ann Wolfe, MFA Sculpture Candidate The Center for Fine Ar t Photography is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprof it, promotes the ar t of photography by suppor ting the grow th of diverse creative ar tis t s through exhibitions and educational programs . For more information w w w.c4f ap.org Suppor t for the exhibition Degrees has been provided by the City of For t Collins For t Fund. Cover Image: Odette England, D egrees #1 (detail), 2021, Unique gelatin silver print from heat- damaged negative, hand-rubbed with bushf ire ash HATTON GALLERY Visual Arts Building Department of Art and Art History Colorado State University 551 W. Pitkin Street, Fort Collins, CO, 80523 hatton.colostate.edu

HATTON GALLERY - Department of Art and Art History

Degrees by Odette England

DEGREES

by Odette England

HATTON GALLERY

DEPARTMENT OF ART AND ART HISTORY Colorado State University

October 28 – December 11, 2021

DEGREES

by Odette England

The HATTON GALLERY in partnership with the Center for Fine Art Photography presents Degrees, an exhibition of large-scale photographs in various forms made by Odette England during and in the aftermath of the Australian bushfires of 2019-2020. England spent six weeks photographing in one of the fire zones and collecting buckets of ash, which she rubbed into the surfaces of her prints. The works speak to loss; the fickle and uncontrollable nature of fire, the urgency of change, and of how we learn, forget, remember, and persevere. So much of photography is about control. Controlling exposure, light, perspective, motion. Making decisions, technical and aesthetic, to control the image. A quick Google search reveals a host of articles and tips on how to take control of everything in photography. Wildfires too use a vocabulary of control. Controlling the blaze, controlled burns, fires burning out of control. When we take a photograph we assume, hope, take for granted that we are in control. To some extent this is true. But the camera does not see as we do, nor do we like the camera. It’s one of the reasons why photographs surprise, delight, and shock us. We often see things in the resultant photograph that we didn’t see, or notice, when we made it. The camera asserts some control. The unexpected does, too. When a photographer makes prints we enact sets of controls to achieve the desired result. This is where Odette England plays with photography, and with fire. How to give the print some control over how it exists in the world. Letting go, if only a little, of artist intent. Her images of wildfire smoke and burned lands in Australia, made with expired heat-damaged film and printed digitally and in the darkroom, are exposed to the visceral, textural materials of wildfires – ash, which she collected, and fire retardant pigment. These materials are notoriously difficult to control. England embraces their uncontainable qualities, rubbing them into the surface of her prints. Putting back into the photographs some of the heady elements that the camera didn’t capture. HATTON GALLERY - Department of Art and Art History

Degrees by Odette England

In some of her ash-rubbed prints, England uses the shapes of flames – gleaned from studying images of wildfires used by media outlets and government agencies – to inform how they hang on the wall. They move with vigor and dynamism, held only by small wooden corners and rusted nails rescued from burned-down fences. In these works, both subject matter and print resist the control of the rectangular frame. There are other works that bear the scars of fire, where England has conducted experimental controlled burns in her studio; where she has turned ash into a watery paste and washed her prints with it, and where she has used expired unfixed photographic paper, matched to the hues and tones of wildfires, to create photographic collages. There is a performance element to England’s work. The wildfire ash and fire retardant pigment influence and corrupt the images. Hers is an animating of the photograph as a surface of inscription. “If I’m going to speak of land and fire, and their unique wild qualities, then I shouldn’t close off their voice, their pitch, their texture.” England’s works are illustrative of the photograph as material, a starting point rather than an end result. They represent how photography can amplify a subject while also being the subject of amplification. She is less interested in technical perfection, more interested in the idea of an image-in-crisis – failing or lacking in some way – to represent ideas about crises. “I treat the photograph as I would paint or clay or metal. I use my camera to process the information in front of me, but then I elaborate on it, so my process is one of elaboration and collaboration. It’s a kind of fiddling with the fidelity that we assume photographs carry.” The philosopher Jacques Derrida said that a photograph takes place once, it has ‘onceness’. England’s work contests that onceness. She prefers to encounter the surface of a photograph over and again. England sees the photograph’s surface as a rich site of meditation but also transformation. “Different types of ‘doing’ allow me to test the dynamics of a print. To make these works I impose myself as a material in a physical yet tender way while listening to all that the work desires to be.”

Degrees by Odette England

Degrees #3, 2021 Unique gelatin silver print from heatdamaged negative, hand-rubbed with bushfire ash 20x24” unframed

Degrees #2, 2021 Unique gelatin silver print from heatdamaged negative, hand-rubbed with bushfire ash 20x24” unframed

HATTON GALLERY - Department of Art and Art History

Degrees by Odette England

Degrees #1, 2021 Unique gelatin silver print from heatdamaged negative, hand-rubbed with bushfire ash 20x24” unframed

Degrees #4, 2021 Unique gelatin silver print from heatdamaged negative, hand-rubbed with bushfire ash 20x24” unframed

HATTON GALLERY - Department of Art and Art History

Degrees by Odette England

Degrees #7 2021 Unique gelatin silver print from heatdamaged negative, hand-rubbed with bushfire ash 20x24” unframed

Degrees - Installation shots HATTON GALLERY Visual Arts Building

Degrees #6, 2021 Unique gelatin silver print from heatdamaged negative, hand-rubbed with bushfire ash 20x24” unframed

HATTON GALLERY - Department of Art and Art History

Degrees by Odette England

Degrees #5, 2021 Unique gelatin silver print from heatdamaged negative, hand-rubbed with bushfire ash 20x24” unframed

Elemental Shapeshifter #6, 2021 Unique archival pigment print on canvas from heatdamaged negative, hand-rubbed with bushfire ash, rusted burned nails, oak corners approx. 33x44” when flat

HATTON GALLERY - Department of Art and Art History

Degrees by Odette England

Elemental Shapeshifter #11, 2021 Unique archival pigment print on canvas from heatdamaged negative, hand-rubbed with bushfire ash, rusted burned nails, oak corners approx. 33x44” when flat

Elemental Shapeshifter #4, 2021 Unique archival pigment print on canvas from heat-damaged negative, handrubbed with bushfire ash, rusted burned nails, oak corners approx. 33x44” when flat

HATTON GALLERY - Department of Art and Art History

Degrees by Odette England

Elemental Shapeshifter #7, 2021 Unique archival pigment print on canvas from heat-damaged negative, handrubbed with bushfire ash, rusted burned nails, oak corners approx. 33x44” when flat

Elemental Shapeshifter #5, 2021 Unique archival pigment print on canvas from heat-damaged negative, handrubbed with bushfire ash, rusted burned nails, oak corners approx. 33x44” when flat

HATTON GALLERY - Department of Art and Art History

Degrees by Odette England

Elemental Shapeshifter #9, 2021 Unique archival pigment print on canvas from heatdamaged negative, hand-rubbed with bushfire ash, rusted burned nails, oak corners approx. 33x44” when flat

Degrees by Odette England

Degrees - Installation shots HATTON GALLERY Visual Arts Building

Degrees by Odette England

Controlled Burns, 2021 Unique gelatin silver print from heat-damaged negative, hand-rubbed with bushfire ash and fire retardant pigment, burned 20x24” unframed

Suppression, 2021 Unique gelatin silver print from heat-damaged negative, hand-rubbed with bushfire ash and fire retardant pigment, burned 20x24” unframed

HATTON GALLERY - Department of Art and Art History

Degrees by Odette England

Colors of Loss, 2021 Unique gelatin silver print from heat-damaged negative, hand-rubbed with bushfire ash and fire retardant pigment, collaged with expired unfixed darkroom paper and engineering sheet film 22x28” unframed

Capricious #1, 2021 Unique archival pigment print on canvas from heatdamaged negative, hand-rubbed and painted with bushfire ash, rusted burned nails, oak corners 33x44” unframed

HATTON GALLERY - Department of Art and Art History

Degrees by Odette England

Capricious #2, 2021 Unique archival pigment print on canvas from heatdamaged negative, hand-rubbed and painted with bushfire ash, rusted burned nails, oak corners 33x44” unframed

Degrees by Odette England

DEGREES by Odette England CHECKLIST Degrees #1, 2021

Degrees #5, 2021

Elemental Shapeshifter #9,

Unique gelatin silver print from

2021

heat-damaged negative, hand-

Unique archival pigment print

rubbed with bushfire ash

on canvas from heat-damaged

20x24” unframed

negative, hand-rubbed with bushfire ash, rusted burned

Degrees #2, 2021

Degrees #6, 2021

nails, oak corners

Unique gelatin silver print from

Approx. 33x44” when flat

heat-damaged negative, hand-

rubbed with bushfire ash

Elemental Shapeshifter #4,

20x24” unframed

2021 Unique archival pigment print

Degrees #3, 2021

Degrees #7, 2021

on canvas from heat-damaged

Unique gelatin silver print from

negative, hand-rubbed with

heat-damaged negative, hand-

bushfire ash, rusted burned

rubbed with bushfire ash

nails, oak corners

20x24” unframed

Approx. 33x44” when flat

Degrees #4, 2021

Elemental Shapeshifter #6,

Elemental Shapeshifter #7, 2021

Unique gelatin silver print from

2021

Unique archival pigment print

heat-damaged negative, hand-

Unique archival pigment print

on canvas from heat-damaged

rubbed with bushfire ash

on canvas from heat-damaged

negative, hand-rubbed with

20x24” unframed

negative, hand-rubbed with

bushfire ash, rusted burned

nails, oak corners

Approx. 33x44” when flat

Degrees by Odette England

Elemental Shapeshifter #5,

Suppression, 2021

Capricious #2, 2021

2021

Unique gelatin silver print from

Unique archival pigment print

heat-damaged negative, hand-

on canvas from heat-damaged

rubbed with bushfire ash and

negative, hand-rubbed and

negative, hand-rubbed with

fire retardant pigment, col-

painted with bushfire ash, rust-

bushfire ash, rusted burned

laged with torn rubbed print

ed burned nails, oak corners

nails, oak corners

20x24” unframed

Approx. 33x44” unframed

Approx. 33x44” when flat Colors of Loss (Inaccuracies), Elemental Shapeshifter #11,

2021

Unique gelatin silver print

Unique archival pigment print

from heat-damaged negative,

on canvas from heat-damaged

hand-rubbed with bushfire ash

negative, hand-rubbed with

and fire retardant pigment,

bushfire ash, rusted burned

collaged with expired unfixed

nails, oak corners

darkroom paper and engineer-

Approx. 33x44” when flat

ing sheet film 22x28” unframed

Controlled Burns, 2021 Unique gelatin silver print from

Capricious #1, 2021

heat-damaged negative, hand-

Unique archival pigment print

rubbed with bushfire ash and

on canvas from heat-damaged

fire retardant pigment, burned

negative, hand-rubbed and

20x24” unframed

painted with bushfire ash, rusted burned nails, oak corners Approx. 33x44” unframed

Visual Arts Building Department of Art and Art History Colorado State University 551 W. Pitkin Street, Fort Collins, CO, 80523 hatton.colostate.edu

CENTER FO R FI NE ART PHOTOGRAPHY