Workshop Exhibition – July 2020
Folk & Folklore was the theme of this workshop. It was hosted by professional artist Rania Emmanouilidou, Apostolos Rizos of Les Yper Yper Cultural Centre Thessaloniki, & curated by Art Historian Eleni Garoufalia. Lectures and discussions took place on the subject of recasting the use of traditional objects in a contemporary way.
Through the ancient artefacts & the historic surroundings that we were exposed to, I found objects and traditional fare that resonated with me and were appropriate for use with the experimental process I was planning to use.
As an artist I work intuitively, fast and furious and almost always in a very physical way.
I am a lover of process innovation and experimentation. Being open to chance & serendipity can sometimes give you wonderful results. I embrace the unknown.
I decided for this workshop to try out a very old photographic printing process in a contemporary context & take it to another artistic level. This process is known as Cyanotype.
Cyanotype was discovered in the 1800’s by an English scientist Sir John Herschel. He used this process for documenting his work. Subsequently, it was used for a broad spectrum of illustrated publications and were also known as blueprints.
The Cyanotype solution is made up of two chemicals which when mixed together and applied to paper and then exposed to UV light, result in a cyan blue image and silhouette of any object or drawing placed on top.
The element of chance when working with chemicals and the sunlight intrigued me.
The magic and the mysticism of the piece in the making.
This involved, trials and errors, triumphs and failures, falling down while playing but always picking yourself back up. Failures are a very important part of our journey, failures can be kind to an artist.
Each of these piece has its own life and tells its own story….
