"Unspoken Words"
Unspoken Words
Barbara Hazen
Media: Copperplate Photogravure
Size: 12"x15" Framed
Price: $850
Artist Statement:
BITTERSWEET
I am in a bittersweet time of life. My parents are in their last chapter, and I will be mourning the loss of them soon. At the same time, my children are creating new families of their own that includes a new chapter of joy for me. I am using forgotten objects and flowers as a metaphor for this time as they too have a bittersweet nature. In fresh bloom flowers and newly purchased items are brilliant and uplifting, and as they decay, they have another kind of beauty. My intention is to observe and bring attention to the beauty in the beginnings and the endings of life.
This is a current and ongoing project, 2022. Copperplate Photogravure
Artist Bio:
Barbara Hazen is a 3rd generation Californian. Her work explores the internal self and the intersection of memory and the family scrapbook, with an emphasis on cyanotype and platinum palladium processes. She received a BS from UCSB in Anthropology and later attended the California Culinary Academy. She worked for most of the next decade in several acclaimed restaurants as the assistant and head pastry chef. After a career in the culinary industry. Hazen returned to her photographic practice. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including PDN, Critical Mass, and B&W Magazine and exhibited in group and solo exhibits including Center for Photographic Art in Carmel, CA, LightBox Gallery in Astoria, OR, The Image Flow in Mill Valley, CA, Focus Gallery in San Francisco, CA, APA in San Francisco, CA and at The Art of Photography in San Diego, CA. She lives and works in Marin County, CA.
PHOTO PROCESS
COPPERPLATE PHOTOGRAVURE
Copperplate photogravures are photographs etched into copper and printed traditionally with ink. Developed in the nineteenth century, this is a photo mechanical process whereby a copper plate is coated with a light-sensitive gelatin tissue which has been exposed to a film positive. It is then etched, resulting in an intaglio plate that can reproduce detailed continuous tones of a photograph. Finally, the etched copper plate is inked and run through a printing press. In my process I also add a layer of Chin collé, a tissue -thin piece of paper layered on top of the inked copper plate, that is then run through the printing press onto the final paper.
