Justine Joseph (1971-) - Swimming Opposite, Fern surround – Original Cyanotype

Among the Ferns Unique Hand-Printed Cyanotype by Justine Joseph From an original photograph by Michael Joseph There is something wonderfully dreamlike about this image - two women swimmng, as if amongst underwater foliage, facing opposite directions, suspended somewhere between photograph, memory and botanical print. Created by hand in the Dordogne from one of Michael Joseph’s original negatives, the photograph has been reinterpreted as a cyanotype and surrounded by a second layer of botanical imagery. Ferns and leaves spill around the central photograph, forming a natural frame and blurring the boundary between the original image and the plants that now surround it. The effect is almost as though the photograph has been rediscovered years later, slowly being reclaimed by nature. The characteristic Prussian blue of the cyanotype shifts from deep, velvety shadows to delicate, almost watercolour-like marks. Brushstrokes, variations in exposure and the unpredictable traces left by the plants are deliberately retained: evidence of a process made with chemistry, sunlight and the human hand rather than produced identically by a machine. At its centre remains Michael Joseph’s photograph; around it, a new generation has grown. Hand-printed by his daughter Justine, the work becomes a quiet conversation between two photographic practices - an original image from Michael Joseph’s archive revisited decades later through one of photography’s earliest printing processes. Presented within a contemporary metallic-effect silver mount, the crisp geometry of the framing contrasts beautifully with the unruly foliage and handmade edges of the cyanotype. A unique artwork. No second example can ever be precisely the same. Photography remembered through sunlight.

Estimate:£252.61

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