"Drips And Branches"
Drips and Branches
Wendy Constantine
Media: Salted paper on vellum with washi
Print Size: 7.5" x 7.5", limited edition of 5 + 1 AP
Framed Size: 18.25” x 18.25”
Price: $700 framed
Artist Statement:
Silos Project
2022 - 2023
Heading west on Highway 7 toward the Front Range, the Lafayette grain silos and elevator seem strangely out of place. They hover on the horizon like a fragment of a memory too distant to recall. The inanimate machine-buildings recently became the subject of a local controversy over whether to preserve or erase one of the last remaining traces of Lafayette's past. Today a conservation easement protects the both beloved and abandoned site from development. The empty vessels are tagged with markings and painted-over graffiti that resemble mid-century American paintings, while plant life is slowly reclaiming the steel structures. The Silos Project is a visual unfolding of the entanglement of nature and man-made landscape.
Artist Bio:
Wendy Constantine is a fine art photographer, printmaker and designer based in Broomfield, Colorado. Her work examines our spiritual connection to the natural world and man-made landscapes, finding beauty in both the fragility of life and the resilience of the human spirit. Her vision is influenced by the aesthetics of early modern photography, especially the poetic intimacy of Josef Sudek and Margrethe Mather in addition to Sally Mann, Frank Gohlke and Albarran Cabrera. She has a big love for 19th century analog processes including photogravure, salted paper, gum bichromate and carbon transfer. Her passion for handmade photography and printmaking grew out of a bachelor degree in studio arts from UCLA, followed by a masters in museum studies at Harvard. She has a background in graphic and experience design, and today she is a product design director for a major educational publisher. Her artwork has been frequently published and exhibited in galleries across the United States.
Process:
The Silos project has been hand printed on Opalux vellum using the salted paper process. This involves coating the vellum with a salted water solution, then coating again with silver nitrate before exposing the digital negative and emulsion to UV light. The images are toned in gold before fixing, and finished with wax on front and mounted to a thin washi on the back for tone before attaching to an embossed washi support.
