Façades : cyanotype experiments

Thank you to Gaada for a lovely day yesterday experimenting with drawing and transparencies for cyanotypes!

Can never get enough of the amazing blue this process creates!

This work is part of an ongoing longer term project about the various World War II ruin-sites scattered around Shetland. Experiences of visiting these ruin-spaces, decaying yet eerily futuristic and also evocative of Modernism ‘from the heroic period’ has led to work using both photography and drawing to explore shifting sense of time and space. Using cyanotype (an early photographic process using UV or sunlight) introduces an aspect of nature and also slows time with its longer exposure times. It’s also synonymous with architectural plans, and this visual reference to construction and projected futures I hope will be interesting to use whilst exploring these war ruins, further developing ongoing ideas around images, pictorial space, ideology and ruination.

This work is supported by Visual Art and Craft Award (Shetland Arts in partnership with Creative Scotland and Shetland Islands Council).