Rebecca Sexton Larson

Veil

Plates

Fork

Artist Statement:

“Life—how curious is that habit that makes us think it is not here, but elsewhere.”
– V.S. Pritchett

This series of images is from my current body of work entitled Elsewhere. The main theme running through this series is memory, altered spaces and a sense of another locale. I approached this project as I had done for years with the ultimate goal of printing large black and white images that would be heavily painted and sewn together. As both a painter and a photographer my interest lies mutually in the image and the manner in which it was made.

Unexpectedly, I experienced a year of personal challenges that made me step back and rethink how I was approaching my image making. I have always been a fastidious planner and technician when it comes to laying out pieces and painting images. Now I reached out for a more spontaneous and intimate way of working and an ethereal image. A workshop with Dan Estabrook inspired me to shift gears and experiment with salt prints. Exploring a 19th century method of printing allows me to continue to create unique works on paper without relying on the limitations of more modern photographic paper and at the same time offers me the freedom to create, explore and rediscover the roots of an early image making technique—a pure process.

Salt printing is one of the oldest alternative photographic processes. A salt print is made using a paper substrate that is coated with first a salt solution and dried, and later coated again with a silver nitrate solution just before exposure. The sensitized paper is placed in direct contact with a negative using a contact-printing frame and exposed to daylight.

The Elsewhere body of work is 3.5 x 3.5 inches printed on 140 lb. Lana Aquarelle paper. All images are printed and signed, titled and date on verso by the artist. Editions of 10.

Low Tech showed at the Center for Fine Art Photography during the month of October.