A dancer stands centre frame with her back to us, her face half seen. The flurry of another dancer's movement envelopes her. On first glance, she appears caught within the dance; caught within the maelstrom. This image was made during a public performance of Lucy Guerin: NEWRETRO at ACCA, Melbourne in 2023. My intention in attending was to capture in the dance something of my own psychological experience at the time. I live with a mental illness and I was searching for images that told a story of my internal struggle. Of what I often experience as cyclonic forces within my psyche. But I also wanted to find images that offered hope, too. That show the possibilities beyond the darkening storm. Here the figure stands within the eye of a storm. She is wrapped up in it almost entirely. But not quite. She looks out beyond it. A sense of hopefulness in her look towards the calm beyond. She's like the Stoic's stone, weathering the beating waves. But she's more than this too. There's a sense that she is not only herself and her hopefulness, but that the storm might be just as much a part of her. It doesn't just enwrap her, she seems to draw it about her, like a shroud. She seems accepting of it and she is not bowed. Perhaps the real hope is in that she seems to know that she and all her experiences are one. She is the sum of her parts and more. She is not only the stone that stands against the violence of the maelstrom. She is the sea itself, too. She is the dance.
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.
