TITLE: We overlap but we never touch / Coal is born of the mountain

Exploring darkness and photographic paper as metaphors for the unconscious, I took matches and light-sensitive paper on a series of night walks in the Australian outback.

I chose to work with trees that were recovering from exposure to a significant bush fire, scarred yet alive. Pressing the paper up against the bark, in between branches, folding and curling, bending and twisting, led both by touch and by instinct, I struck matches to create the photographic exposure. I stretched the inclusion of the elemental, introducing lake water to the developing tray; moonlight exposures alongside the fire.

At times I felt ridiculous, preposterous, absurd; at others bewitched and bewitching. Setting up a makeshift darkroom in situ, I developed the prints soon after I made them and realised the charred surface of the trees was marking and scratching the paper, creating a simultaneous exposure to the one I was making with light.

I fantasised that I was conjuring latent memories in the reuniting of elements; reigniting some lost forgotten mystery belonging to the forest, the paper or myself.

Prints made from a series of night walks in the Australian outback, with trees charred by bush fires, light sensitive paper and matches.

Titles:

Certain bodies/subtle air.
The heat and light of fire persists.
The air is not only an empty space.
Those that are always there.
Motions that we now perceive.
As solid as water or earth.
There is nothing in the world except what they touch.
There are many spaces about us in which we sense.

Silver gelatin prints on black and white fibre paper, New South Wales, Australia, 2015.

AUTHOR: Rhona Eve Clews (United Kingdom)

Rhona Eve Clews (UK) is a fine artist working across photography, performance and installation. Predominately using cameraless analogue photography and light sensitive materials her experimental processes echo early nineteenth century photographic practices and attempt to challenge notions of photographic stability and representation, referencing painting, drawing and performance art histories. Driven by a desire to interrogate and penetrate the essential alchemical potential of the photograph her practice embraces obsession, repetition, ritual, and failure in attempts to occupy significant spaces, journeys and mythologies. Experiencing photography as both a physical and psychological practice, she sees the “camera” as an intermediary device for accessing particular states of consciousness. The resultant works intend to engage the viewer as witness, with each work embodying and documenting a performance or encounter, a simultaneous presence and absence.

Rhona has exhibited internationally, having performed as part of 'Six Actions for New York City' for Creative Time, USA and has completed art residencies in Australia and New York. Selected exhibitions include Photofusion, London; Photomonth, London; Brighton Photofringe; Fastforward Women in Photography, UK; Streit House Space, USA; Fotofilmic, Canada and Auckland Festival of Photography. With a Bachelors in Psychology and a Postgraduate Diploma in Photography from University of the Arts, London, Rhona is due to commence an MFA in Fine Art at Slade School of Fine Art, UK (Autumn 2017). Her works are held in private collections in UK, Europe, USA and New Zealand. Rhona currently lives and works in London, UK.