Chemistry of Chance... Sneak Preview

Here is a sneak preview of the work I am putting in to the Chemistry of Chance Exhibition at Edmund Pearce gallery...
The opening is on Thursday Feb 14 (6-8pm)

Background info ...

The exhibition is based on a collection of darkroom 'discards' that Greg Neville and I happened to have collected independently over a period of thirty years or more, working in various college darkroom environments...

The detritus of unwanted, discarded prints and test strips, left in the darkroom bins after class sessions, living in a chemical 'soup' of developer, stop bath, fixer, air, water combined with the action of light (during cleanup), makes for an environment leading to complex alchemical reactions, and results in fascinating forms and colours on the discarded prints. 

With careful selection and editing, abstract 'compositions' can be discovered. These selections were scanned and digitally edited to bring out what was perceived in the original print and to intensify the compositional elements. As in other aspects of my work, there are abstract but identifiable figures and landscape elements.

In some way, this exhibition is both a celebration of the darkroom and a marker for it's demise. For many photographers in the digital age, the darkroom is a fading memory and best forgotten, but for others (admittedly, now a small but dedicated group), it is still a magical place that can be a site for precision, but also one that can allow for chance events worth celebrating...