Artist statement: The cutting series depicts my mother and father holding an orchid cactus entombed in wax. Also known as Queen of the night, this plant can take up to a year to produce a flower that only blooms for a single night. Plated by my parents in the home where I was born, it has been nurtured and regrown from cutting to cutting. On rare occasions when it flowered, my grandmother used to make a healing soup from its sweet intoxicating blossom. Encasing the plant in wax is a symbolic act – one of holding onto collective memory – but in doing so the plant was destroyed. This work explores the transmission of culture and the passage between sensory and material thresholds of the body.
Also known as Giclee prints or bubble-jet prints, pigment ink-jet prints are generated by computer printers from digital or scanned files using dye-based or pigment-based inks. A series of nozzles spray tiny droplets of ink onto the paper surface in a precise pattern that corresponds to the digital image file. In dye-based prints the ink soaks into the paper, whereas in pigment-based prints the ink rests and dries on top of the paper surface.
Whilst the term is broad, pigment ink-jet prints have come to be associated with prints produced on fine art papers. They are the most versatile and archival method of printing available to photographers today. A wide variety of material on which an image can be printed with such inks are available, including various textures and finishes such as matte photo paper, watercolour paper, cotton canvas or pre-coated canvas.
