PROCESS
Our collaborative practice has so far focused on creating series of images that evoke a sense of the places we’ve been.
The cyanotype process emerged during our first collaboration in Thailand on the project BKK222. It proved to be an effective and exciting link between our practices of photography and painting acting as a photosensitive material that can be used in a myriad of ways. We use it wet directly onto paper as UV-reactive ink, or as dry treated sheets to expose photographs into or to paint onto with water. Water acts as the ‘stop’ and so painting onto dry cyanotype with water can create beautiful, ethereal blends of blue hues.
For our second collaboration AUSTRALIS we’re continuing with our thread of light using cyanotype to capture the presence of the Australian sun in all the different locations we visit. What better way to spend your time than out in the beautiful Australian sunshine, hiking through the mountains or lying on soft sandy beaches making paintings that rely on the sun and skies for their colour? Cyanotype doesn’t require or produce any harsh chemicals in its process so we feel confident using it in sensitive or protected environments. We are always careful to take any excess waste water away with us to be completely safe. The varying levels of UV we paint under and the ways we used the cyanotype give us a wide range of colour and form.
Mounting these final pieces has been such a joy. Whether poring over potential pairings and triptychs or allowing a piece to stand alone it’s so satisfying to see paintings created at different locations forming such a coherent series. Each finished piece displays the energy of colour and form captured from the sites we visited and portrays a balanced thread of flow and movement between the individual paintings.
