Emilie Poiret-Brown - Facture
My work lies on the boundary between photography and painting, seeking to challenge the notions of what a photograph is and how it is created. With conventional photography, the artist’s intervention takes place off the surface. In contrast, painting is valued on the artist’s personal expression which takes place simultaneously with a physical interaction between artist and surface.
Cameraless processes allow me to interact directly with the surface and attempt to bring painting’s values to photography.
I have been inspired by painters, such as Yves Klein and Kazuo Shiraga, who use the human body in a physical connection with the materials and this physical connection is central to my work.
Unlike conventional photography where the photographer’s body is distanced, my body is active in the mark-making, interacting physically with the photographic materials. I treat the light-sensitive surface as a canvas, using my body as a paintbrush. For me, the act of mark-making is a meditative act, a form of catharsis. It is this meditative process which dictates my gesture, often resulting in bold and expressive mark-making.
Although my interaction is closer to a painter’s, my work is still based within photography. Instead of paint and canvas, I use analogue processes and photographic light-sensitive materials.
However, where photography normally involves strong control of materials, I misuse them utilising the photographic materials as creative components, to be handled in shaping the work. Rather than capturing a decisive moment, time frozen in an image, my work is a trace of its own creation. The process is not hidden but is made apparent through the chemical marks left on the surface, allowing an insight into the process of creation. My interaction with the surface is a private performance in which the viewer only has access to the aftermath, the trace of my gesture.