Artist statement: When we look at photographs, we are generally asked to view them as a window onto another place and time. Echoing a famously shocking hue, ‘Schiaparelli’ ruptures this convention by asking the viewer to simultaneously look through and at its photographicness, and from its centre to its edge. The matrix from which this photograph is derived is a negative on which I have inscribed saliva, urine, bath water, ink and paint, mingled materials of genealogical and historical remembering. This photograph also deliberately draws our attention to its margins, an area of the photograph created during the printing process itself. Refusing to give up any easy meaning, ‘Schiaparelli’ stages an encounter with the viewer, an experience as much as a document.
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Chromogenic prints are printed on paper that has at least three emulsion layers containing invisible dyes and silver salts. Each emulsion layer is sensitive to a different primary colour of light (red, green or blue). The development process converts the hidden dyes to visible colour depending on the amount of light it was exposed to. This type of paper is commonly used to print from colour negatives or digital files to produce a full-colour image. It can also be used to print black-and-white images, giving softer grain and less contrast than gelatin silver prints. Commonly known as c-type prints, chromogenic processing was developed in the 1940s and widely used for colour printing, including for domestic snapshots. While recent years have seen this process accompanied by ink-jet and digital printing technologies, chromogenic printing still remains in use to this day.
