The Christmas Open Houses are a familiar part of Brighton life and this year i am lucky enough to be showing some work at the Bungaroosh Gallery. As well as some large framed photographs i have been experimenting with applying digital ground to reclaimed antique papers and making inkjet prints. What i love about this process is the introduction of brush marks to my images, which give a sense of gesture. The mottled, aged patina of the papers i print on (usually the endpapers of old books sourced from charity shops) also add random marks to each image which not only makes each unique but also give a lovely aged feel to the image. It's as if my modern images are having a conversation with the history of the paper they are printed. A favourite example is a flyleaf that said "Wishing you a Happy Christmas' in beautiful old fashioned handwriting which looks great under an image of a snowy tree. As a photographer the aim when reproducing work is usually for every print to be identical, so it is lovely to be working with a process which is more experimental, and one which rejoices in the imperfect and the random.
