Ode to Anna
Ode to Anna 24th April - 19th June Phrame Wales Photography Collective LLantarnam Grange Arts Centre
Foreward ‘Llantarnam Grange Arts Centre is delighted to support and collaborate with Phrame Wales, a collective which is open to everyone but focused on promoting active and emerging female photographers working in the South Wales area. We provide opportunities for emerging artists to present work that excites and challenges and encourage our audiences to engage with the best work produced in Wales. This exhibition ‘Ode to Anna’ is a celebration of the remarkable work of Anna Atkins, her influence on photography and the amazing talent that we have in South Wales. It is a celebration of women and beautifully demonstrates the way in which one woman’s photographic work from the past, has inspired women of the present and therefore women of the future. Using a variety of alternative techniques, mediums and concepts, each artist has created a uniquely personal response to the ground breaking work achieved by Anna Atkins.’ Louise Jones-Williams, Director, Llantarnam Grange Arts Centre
Exhibitiors Molly Caenwyn Savanna Dumelow Faye L-Griffiths Sharon Magill Kate Mercer Jane Nesbitt Tess Emily Seymour Catherine Yemm Patricia Ziad
Introduction The early years of photography were undeniably experimental. After the announcement of photography in January 1839, firstly by Louis Daguerre, with silver plate daguerreotypes and later by William Henry Fox Talbot with his paper photogenic drawings, the revolutionary new medium created ripples of excitement throughout the scientific community. In 1842, Sir John Herschel, an English Scientist, began his own experiments with light sensitive salts, but rather than the hitherto typical silver salts, he opted to try iron-based instead. Images were produced that showcased rich Prussian blue and white images, and were given the name Cyanotypes. This cameraless method of photography was then adopted and championed by Anna Atkins. Anna Atkins is one of the earliest female photographers and her Cyanotypes are uniquely recognizable. A mixture of potassium ferricyanide and ammonium ferric citrate would be painted onto a porous surface such as paper or fabric then left to dry. An algae specimen would then be placed atop of the treated material and exposed to the sun. The chemistry would transform from a light green to a muddy silvery blue. Once finished exposing, the image would be washed, transforming the dull and dark image into a brilliant shade of blue. In the middle of each frame would be an impression, a white shadow, of each specimen and were finished with a label of each botanicals Latin name. Along with Julia Margaret Cameron, another pioneer of the medium, Atkins has influenced many and has left a lasting impression on the photographic world and its history. She not only was one of the earliest women practicing this new medium, in 1843 she became the first person ever to produce a photo book. She bound the collection of the cyanotypes she had created and produced “British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions”. This was published nearly an entire year before Talbot’s famous work “The Pencil of Nature” and was the beginning of 3 volumes that were continued to be published over the following ten years.
2020 was a year that saw many return to or newly explore alternative photographic processes. Whilst we were locked up indoors, the sun blazed outside. Fields, foot paths and communal green spaces became overrun with weeds and were taken over by thriving botanicals. Whilst touch became criminalised, many reached out to photographic methods that were tangible and tactile. 2021 came slowly around the corner and the passion for alternative processes still thrives, in homes and online. This year also marks 150 years after the death of Anna Atkins who passed away on the 9th of June 1871. Ode to Anna aims to highlight the legacy and lasting impact she has left on the history of Photography. This exhibition showcases work by members of Phrame Wales, a collective who seeks to amplify and support diversity and equality within photography and photography in Wales. Ode to Anna aims to showcase photographic imagery that has either been inspired by Atkins or draws attention to her originality and accomplishments. From documents of lockdown weeds and lockdown intimacies to chemical experiments and alternative digital practises. Previously, photography and Wales have been internationally synonymous the genre of Documentary Photography. Ode to Anna not only celebrates the important and multi-faceted presence of women in the history of photography but showcases alternative methods of photographic practise within Wales. Adding another thread to the discourses in Wales’ own photographic historical narrative. Molly Caenwyn
Molly Caenwyn Please?
Molly Caenwyn is a photographer and photographic historian whose practice explores materiality and a phenomenological approach to photography, through analogue and alternative photographic processes. Throughout both her practical and historical research, she explores eroticism, the abject, the sex industry, archives and early welsh female photographers. Molly has been influenced and impacted by the legacy of Anna Atkins within both her practical and scholarly work. The Prussian blues of Cyanotypes and the interconnection of science and the artistic aesthetic in Impressions of British Algae, led her to study the Cyanotype process. For Ode to Anna, Molly Caenwyn explores kink through her project ‘Please?’. She examines her sexual boundaries previously set in place regarding how she and others interact with the fluids her body produces. Molly uses urine and menstrual blood to make up cyanotype chemicals and through the manipulation of fluids and experiments in mark making, creates and establishes new borders. The use of body fluids echoes the primitive and elemental nature of the photographic process. Fluids are applied and exposed to UV rays, leaving impressions of shadow, light and colour. These colour studies portray the minimalist aesthetic that reveals the influence Atkin’s own images has had on this series of work. Using the fluids and boundaries originally challenged by others, Molly re-evaluates her own relationship with them and how she interacts and relates to them. This objectless and camera less approach to making photographs becomes a document of process and chemistry as well as a voyeuristic gaze upon the unconditional and sexual relationships between body and artist. Instagram @MollyCaenwyn | Twitter @MollyCaenwyn | Website www.Mollycaenwyn.co.uk
Savanna Dumelow The Umbra Ghost Behind the thin veil, the shadow coveted her. It danced around her. This place was empty and yet filled with the echoes of its past. The sadness remained. She was dead, but she would hold on. Just a little longer. The Victorian Era saw the continued development of science that challenged creation with evolution, and so the era also witnessed the resurgence of religion. Thus returned a fear and curiosity of the supernatural. Spirit photography became a tool to deceive. Spiritualists and Photographers played on the sadness and grief felt by those who had lost loved ones. Making fools of those willing to believe that a distorted, over exposed or damaged image, could be the other side trying to commune. During this time it was very rare for women to freely contribute to the arts and science. In many ways they were living as ghosts in their own lives. Anna Atkins played an important part in breaking through a patriarchal boundary, inspiring women to move out of the shadows, for generations to come. This image is akin to Anna’s work as it was not made using a camera. It is constructed of multiple A4 scans, made possible by encasing an open lidded document scanner in a purposely made black out box. Big enough to fit a single body. The individual images were then digitally stitched together to form the full picture. The work is inspired by a fascination and passion for ghost stories, gothic tragedies and the supernatural. A subject that is simultaneously macabre, aesthetically beguiling and morbidly intriguing. Situated in South Wales, Savanna Dumelow is a creative who works with many different aspects of the creative industry. She is a freelancer, a photographer and an assistant curator. Her work often explores the female form, esoteric culture and history. Above all she is driven by her need to meld fantasy with reality. Instagram @ savanna_dumelow_ | Website: www.savannadumelow.com
Faye L-Griffiths Growth Cannot Be Contained
Faye Lavery-Griffiths is a visual artist who works with analogue photographic processes. In response to the work of Anna Atkins, Faye has created ‘Growth Cannot Be Contained’ bringing together her photographic and wood working practices to encapsulate the growth and progression of photography and architectural design. The Wardian Case, a traditional form of terrarium and vivarium, from the 19th century, is named after Dr. Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward who promoted its use during this period. It was used to protect plant specimens being brought back from far flung corners of the globe by scientists wanting to study plants in more detail. Within the case and spilling out from the side panels are paper plant structures similar to those recorded by Anna Atkins in the 1840’s - 1850’s. On the surface of the leaves the cyanotype imagery depicts architectural elements from buildings dating from the 1800’s up to the modern day, from cities across Europe and the UK. The plants spilling out of the mahogany case represent the exponential growth seen and recorded within areas of architecture and city populations. The backs of the paper leaves are coated with unexposed cyanotype chemicals that will develop and change colour throughout the exhibition with exposure to natural light. This represents the continuing use, development and experimentation with cyanotypes used by artists’ today.
Instagram @Faye_Griffiths_photography | Website www.fayegriffiths-photography.co.uk
Sharon Magill A Brief History of Women in Blue Sharon Magill is a Cardiff based artist exploring themes of isolation, loneliness and solitude, identity and place. Sharon’s work examines psychological spaces, domestic scenes and exterior places, communicating the silences of the space we exist, internally and externally. Her work often relates contrasting elements of light and dark, voice and voiceless, expression and suppression. Sharon works in various media including photography, video and sound and has been working with cyanotype printing since 2017. As a female artist working with cyanotype Sharon is acutely aware of the lack of recognition the photographer and botanist Anna Atkins has had until recently. A Brief History of Women in Blue examines the contributions of women, scientifically and domestically, through the additive and subtractive processes of cyanotype printing. This body of work references an historic poster advertising Reckitts Blue on display at Cynon Valley Museum. Reckitts Blue is a synthetic substance added to the laundry to make whites whiter. It was commonly used by housewives up to the 1950s and is embedded into generational female history, with the artists mother recalling her mother adding Reckitts Blue to the wash. A form of ‘bluing’ is still used in washing powders today described as an ‘optical brightener’ in the list of ingredients. Washing powders act as a bleach on the cyanotype print, reducing colour from blues to pale yellows. After printing each image, the prints were bathed in Daz washing powder, bleaching the images over different durations to create varying tones of blue, green, brown and yellow.
Website: www.sharonmagill.co.uk | Facebook: SharonMagill.Artist
Instagram: @shazmagill | Twitter: @sharon_magill
Kate Mercer Call Me By My Familiar Name Kate Mercer is a visual artist based in Newport. Her work uses a range of media including photography, video, collage and textiles, to explore cultural uses of photographs, particularly focusing on memory, identity and perception. Using found and self-sourced imagery as starting points, her work explores the role of photography as a document and self-constructed record. Inspired by Anna Atkins’ interest in scientific documentation of flora from the British Isles and the memorial poem ‘Death is nothing at all’ by Henry Scott-Holland, Kate wanted to use the ephemerality of cut flowers to create still-life vanitas photographs. Using stems from memorial flowers received after a personal bereavement, Call Me By My Familiar Name is a series of collages that immortalises arrangements of floral tributes destined to perish, where the act of photographing these ephemeral blooms keeps them alive forever. The final montages replicate the shape and textures of these flowers reflecting Atkins’ scientific precision and purpose, whilst referencing photography’s familiar purpose of documenting the everyday for memory keeping.
Email: studio@katemercer.co.uk | Facebook: Kate Mercer – Art & Photography
Instagram @_katemercer | Twitter @_katemercer
Jane Nesbitt Jane Nesbitt was born in Chepstow, South Wales. Since completing a Bachelor’s Degree in Photography in 2018, Jane has delved much deeper into her photographic practice. Jane enjoys all genres of photography and has two ongoing projects that are important to her. As well as capturing the landscape she encounters on her walks along the Severn Estuary and Wales Coast Path, Jane is using her photography to express the psychological impact of domestic abuse. Jane has been inspired by Anna Atkins’ innovative use of new photographic technologies which merged art and science during the 19th century. Anna recorded and identified her botanical images using the cyanotype photographic process. She was a pioneering female photographer and is a model for many contemporary female artists. During her walks along the Severn Estuary and Wales Coast Path during lockdown, Jane has collected and photographed much of the plant life that grows along the shores. These simple and beautiful wild plants have been captured using digital photography and serve to improve our appreciation of the natural world as inspired by Anna Atkins’ outstanding work.
Instagram: @justjaney | Twitter: @justjaney369 | Facebook: @jane.nesbitt
Tess Emily Seymour You Have to be Beautiful and Hate Yourself
Tess is passionate about capturing truth and integrity from a feminist perspective. Working across diverse environments, she achieves this with an intimate approach that strives for observance, understanding and empowerment. For the last two years Tess has focused on producing lens-based and alternative process projects, with the aim of holistically inspiring communities to engage others in selfappreciation. Tess also advocates for equality and promotes the recognition of mental health and wellbeing. This series is a partly collaborative and ongoing project that documents a group of 20-30 friends. The work explores the complicated and complex relationships that the individuals share with one another and also with themselves. The intense closeness and intimacy that they share is unusual for a group of this size. Photographs are important to them, as the activity of image making is shared by the group which captures and encourages an appreciation for the self. Dual portraits are presented through a single cyanotype. Simultaneously portraying two individuals reflecting the relationship between them. The intimacy of this shared space within the frame, is representative of the closeness – and sometimes claustrophobia – that exists between them. Their co-dependence provides a rich support network, but also isolates them from new relationships, often creating an unattainable bar for new friendships and lovers. Their love for each other is complex and can be both remedy and cause of their poor mental health The dual tonality of the Cyanotype process parallels the duality of these relationships, two portraits collaborating and battling in different parts of the same image, empowering and overwhelming each other with light and dark. Email: tessemily.seymour@gmail.com | Website: www.tessemilyseymour.com
Instagram: @tess.emily.seymour
Catherine Yemm Catherine Yemm is a photographer and mixed medium artist who combines cyanotypes and wax to create encaustic pieces. She discovered the alternative photographic process whilst completing a Foundation Art and Design course. Catherine finds the timeless process of creating cyanotypes captivating as there is always an element of surprise. The position of the light, the shadows created, the placement of 2D and 3D objects or photographic negatives, the type of paper and the way the chemical emulsion is applied results in a unique print that appears when the paper is rinsed. Encaustic wax is a medium she explored whilst working on a project about memories. Coating the fine paper pieces with wax mimics how memories are embedded into our minds. The inspiration for Catherine’s work comes from places she spends time in, places that hold memories and from sentimental items. This work was inspired by her daily river walks. Inspired by Anna Atkins Catherine uses real plants and flowers to create her blueprints of where she walks. She collects as she walks and presses or dries the plants and flowers to preserve them. The cyanotypes created capture the details of individual flora but also reflect the way that plants occupy their natural environment. In nature layers of plants merge into each other. Knowing that she will not always be able to walk these paths and that the memories in her mind will fade, these blueprints will become a lasting reminder of the charming paths she has trodden.
Instagram: @catherine_yemm | Website: www.catherineyemm.co.uk
Patricia Ziad
Patrica Ziad a documentary photographer/artist living and working in Penarth and photographing with film using a medium format camera. Patricia finds that the most interesting, challenging and rewarding work she does is to experiment with alternative photographic processes. Darkroom skills and knowledge are an advantage in this and are instrumental in developing images based on traditional photographic processes. Alternative processes are less precise than the strict procedures for making black and white photographs. This method of working does not always need a dark room, a mistake may enhance the image, the journey is different and it becomes a form of migration, moving towards and being within a creative process. This observation of process connects with Anna Atkins innovative research and her photographic recording of plants. Her work calls for a response that endorses her original approach to botanical studies acknowledging her diligence and her strength of character as a scientist who was dedicated to the cyanotype process as a means of documenting botanical specimens. This response to Atkins cyanotypes was to select the chemigram as a method of image making. These are also hand-made, can be unpredictable, develop beautiful fine detail, organic colours and textures sharing some commonality with the cyanotype process. A chemigram works with resists and darkroom chemistry, as a reference to Atkins work leaves were used experimentally as a subject for printing fusing photographic process with botany in an unorthodox method of image making; representing a natural material not as a scientific study but as an artistic endeavour revealing the beauty and familiarity of a complex leaf structure. Instagram: @patriciaziad
Phrame Wales
Ode To Anna is the third exhibition produced and curated by Phrame Wales, based on the proposal of member Molly Caenwyn, specifically for Llantarnam Grange Arts Centre. Phrame Wales is an inclusive organisation, promoting equality and opportunity, led by the concerns, values and shared vision of it’s members. The collective offers a warm welcome to all, sharing our energy, knowledge, and expertise to empower all people we work with. Kate Mercer
Exhibition Creator and Curator | Molly Caenwyn Curator | Tess Emily Seymour Curator and Digital Design | Faye L-Griffths Exhibitions Assistant | Savanna Dumelow