"chemical bath" - the end

Mornin' everyone,

"chemical bath", an exhibition presenting photographs taken and printed with traditional and alternative techniques, ended on Saturday.

During the exhibition, we presented work by 5 photographers:

Anne Campbell 

Toralf Sümmchen

Marianne Priest

Charles Guerin

 

 and Ladislav Viszoczky

A big thanks to the artists for their participation and to all our visitors!

For those of you who weren't able to attend, 
we'll be posting images of the exhibition walls this week.

Stay tuned for updates about our next exhibition in Hanbury Road Gallery!

"chemical bath" - a few images of Bargoed

Evening everyone,

"chemical bath" is half way through its second week now, so we thought we'd show you a few photos of the gallery, our visitors and also Bargoed's independent shops and buildings (the image of the grand interior that looks like a church is in fact Bargoed Library, converted from an old chapel).

Come and visit if you get the chance, the current exhibition is open till the 17th of October,

Tuesday to Saturday, 10.30 to 6. For directions to the gallery, go here.

"chemical bath" artists: Charles Guerin

Evening everyone,

tonight we are writing about Charles Guerin, a French photographer who uses a wide range of traditional and alternative printing techniques. Charles works exclusively with analogue photographs, and also develops and prints them himself. His work covers wet and dry plate collodion, cyanotypes, gumoil, gum dichromate, van dyke and others; he also takes polaroids. 

The main themes in Charles's photography are nature and portraiture. His landscapes are very classical and have a composition reminiscent of Victorian postcards; his portraits often capture his subjects in half-movement, using techniques that require layering emulsions, which add extra tones, giving them a three-dimensional texture and quality. Charles's still lifes present the subjects from a close up, with a uniform background, which emphasizes the details without distracting the viewer's gaze.

You can find more of Charles's images on his flickr and facebook page, where you can also see various stages of print production and an in-depth analysis and info about the techniques he uses to create them.

"chemical bath" artists: Marianne Priest

Marianne Priest is an American photographer living and working in northern lower Michigan. After taking up photography in the late 90s, she taught herself analogue photography and lith printing - the techniques that she uses now - through reading, experimenting and trial and error.

For the past several years, Marianne has been working exclusively with and perfecting the lith printing technique. Working with what normally is a monochrome technique, Marianne has recently started hand-colouring her prints with oil paint. Using 35mm and medium format film, and cameras such as Holga, and Great Wall, she makes small enlargements, no bigger than 8x10, which requires the viewer to get close to each image, making them engage more intimately with her images.

 

The subject Marianne portrays most often is nature, either landscapes or still lifes. She describes her style as close to pictorialism, an aesthetic that was most popular in the 19th and early 20th century before it was pushed out of mainstream by the so-called straight photography. 

During "chemical bath" we'll be showing a selection of Marianne's lith prints and hand-coloured lith prints. Marianne doesn't currently publish her work online, but keep your eyes peeled!