This body of work begins with the anthotype, a 19th-century image-making process that uses natural pigments extracted from flowers to create a light-sensitive emulsion. I brush the emulsion onto paper and expose it to sunlight over the course of several days or weeks. The resulting images are then scanned and digitally transformed before being produced as final giclée prints.
The process is inherently slow and collaborative. Light, plant matter, paper, and time all participate in the formation of the image: a reciprocal exercise between subject and medium.
I am interested in this transformation as a way of thinking about memory. Like recollection, the images are mutable, shaped by the conditions through which they are formed and preserved. The anthotype's gradual exposure makes time visible as both a material and an active force. What begins as a flower becomes pigment, then image, and ultimately a record of a process that cannot be separated from its passage through time.
The resulting works offer a way of considering the more-than-human world through materials rather than representation alone. They emerge from an exchange between looking and making, between what is gathered from the landscape and what I bring to the process.
Giclée prints from original anthotypes
Hahnemühle Bamboo Fibre
Editions of 10 + 2 AP
24 × 28”
Inquiries: shelley@shelleykirkwood.com UK: Select images available via Cicek Gallery: hello@cicekgallery.com