Foto Relevance is pleased to present Lumen Notebook, the gallery's debut solo exhibition of works by Amanda Marchand. Using ideas inherent in the temporality of the lumen printing process, Marchand explores concepts of landscape, time, and our mortal planet. The cameraless photographic process of creating lumens is beautiful in its simplicity, as colors and shapes are created by exposing black and white photo paper to light, bringing out the latent color in the paper. As it develops, the ephemeral changing colors of the lumen serve as a visual marker for the passage of time, captured with a scanner and held in perpetuity by the artist in a way that merges early photographic processes with new technology. Cutting and rearranging, Marchand creates compositions of color referencing the natural landscape - the horizon, the movement of the sun, the growth and decay of vegetation, as well as cataloging endangered and disappearing species of flora and fauna. Bringing together several bodies of Marchand’s work, including The World is Astonishing with You in it: A 21st Century Field Guide to the Birds, Ferns and Wildflowers, Lumen Notebook, No Title Required, and Timelines, the show is a testament to the changing environment around us, reminding us of the ebb and flow of time and our own place within nature. Lumen Notebook will be on view at Foto Relevance from May 14th through July 9th, 2022.
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AMANDA MARCHAND, PURPLE CONEFLOWER
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A lumen (or sunprint, solargram or, by technique, a photogram) is created from the interaction of sunlight, object, and light sensitive silver gelatin paper to create an unpredictable but colorful visual of shapes and shadow. A photogram is the process where objects placed on paper (or film) and then exposed to light leave a “shadow’ outline of what was placed on the paper. An actual camera, as we know it, is not used, hence the technique is also referred to as “camera-less" photography. If the object lies on the paper flat, there is a sharper line and definition of the object. If the object is rounded or not flush to the light sensitive paper, then the image outline is softer, fuzzier. The more three dimensional an object, the more the shadow of the image created hints at that object’s existence with soft shadow. Each original lumen collage in the collection is, itself, a unique print as Marchand hand cuts the papers into multi-paneled collages. Marchand’s artistry is in mastering this technique to create these beautiful images.
The Lumen printmaking process presents a Catch-22 — the photographic paper’s color continues to change the longer it interacts with light, unless chemically “fixed,” meaning immersed in a “hypo” chemical solution. The chemical “fix” process destroys the varied colors, altering their color. Unfixed, the paper will continue to change color as light darkens the paper further. Marchand deals with this conundrum by scanning the lumen, creating a digital image of the paper’s color and preserving the image at a point in time. “Chemical fix dramatically alters lumen color. Because of this, I have been using a scanner to “preserve” lumen color, where the scanner light participates in making the final image. I like how this tool expands the conversation I’m interested in about time, merging early photographic processes with new technology." The exposure to light thus becomes a record and mark of time. While a reasonable solution, the light from the scanner will also change the color of the paper. But this does not bother Marchand: “I’m excited by the fact that the scanner is part of the making of the image, is in fact necessary for the reading of the lumen color, that it changes the original even as it records it. This seems unique to photography and fascinates me. I don’t feel there is any loss here, only a more complex understanding of how images can be made and what photography is, in fact. The image exists as a conversation between analog and digital.”
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AMANDA MARCHAND, A FRIEND IS A SOUL IN 5 BODIES, 2019
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ABOUT THE ARTIST
Amanda Marchand is a Canadian, New York-based photographer. Her work explores the human condition through the poetics of landscape with an experimental approach to photography. Marchand’s monographs, Nothing Will Ever be the Same Again (2019), and Night Garden (2015) were published by Datz Press. She has also published the following artist books: The World is Astonishing with You in it: A 21st Century Field Guide to the Birds, Ferns and Wildflowers (2021); The Book of Hours (2018); Because the Sky (2017). Her series 415/514 was published by Edition One Studios (2009). A permanent installation of her work is on view at the MUHC Glen Hospital in Montreal.
Marchand has received awards and recognitions at PX3 Prix de la Photographie Paris 2020; BarTur Photography Award, 2020; the International LensCulture Art Awards 2019; GoggleWorks 2018 Juried Competition; CENTER’s Choice Awards 2015; C4FAP "Center Forward 2015"; grants from the Quebec Council of Arts and Letters; Doggone Foundation; and the San Francisco Art Institute Graduate Fellowship Award. Marchand is a MacDowell Colony and Headlands Center for the Arts Fellow. She has also attended residencies at the Hermitage Artist Retreat, the Studios at MASS MoCA, Datz Museum, The Bakery Photo Collective, Hewnoaks Artist Colony, and Arteles Creative Center (Finland).
Her work has been exhibited in solo and group shows internationally. Marchand is the author of the book of fiction, without cease the earth faintly trembles (DC Books, 2003) awarded "Critic's Pick" by NOW Magazine. She holds an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute.
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Second Sight lecture with Amanda Marchand
Recorded in San Diego on 7 May 2022
