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PUSH>PROCESS, curated by Emma Emmerton and Nastassja Simensky, opens next week at CoExist Galleries, TAP.

Local and internationally acclaimed artists are brought together to show challenging works which test the boundaries of the photographic processes they employ. Light, the life source of plants and consequently the Earth is the catalyst Binh Danh uses to record images onto leaves. Once the photosynthetic process has been captured, the leaves are cast in resin which results in an aesthetic similar to biological samples for scientific studies.

Nicolai Klimaszewski uses digital technology to carve photographic relief surfaces. Printed in a similar manner to the early Woodbury-types (which involved relief printing of photographic images) Klimaszewski works in pigmented gelatin and a diverse range of media rather than ink.

Charlie Skelton’s love of wild places started as a child’s wanderings on the North Downs and along the coast around Dover. Later, moved by their austere beauty and the ever changing quality of the light, Skelton sought to respond to this in his images, working exclusively with a large format camera and contact printing from the negatives using the Platinum printing
process.

Christina Z Anderson’s images include a mordançage process which physically deconstructs the photograph itself and, along with it, the sanctity of the pristine black and white print. In the mordançage process, a caustic, acidified copper bleaching solution is used to bleach and dissolve away the silver image.

Alex Chater is an artist who inhabits a world between fine art and photography. Though his work is based on traditional gum dichromate, he has developed a modern approach to this traditional method of image making, using plastic as a base on which to print, and egg as a photo sensitive medium to carry the colourent. His prints are built from many thin layers of colored egg emulsions selectively hardened on to the base using a range of different digital negatives.

Rebecca Sexton Larson’s room-sized pinhole camera exposure “Into the Backyard” is a multi paneled installation which has been exposed, removed from the wall then processed to produce paper negatives which are then sandwiched with unexposed fibre-based black and white paper and exposed under an enlarger. The final positive photographic final print is built upon using various art mediums such as painting, drawing, and image transfers.

Tarja Trygg will be presenting and introducing a short film SOLARGRAPHY – SPACE ART in the screening room. A mesmerising journey through some of the images taken as part of The Global Art Project of Pinhole Solargraphy. Formed as part of her PhD. studies at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki, pinhole cameras were used to document a whole season of the sun’s movements across the sky. Trygg used volunteer ´can assistants´ all over the world to collect and return pinhole images with the intention of creating a world map of Solargraphs.

In the Winch Room Simon Fowler showcases a selection of images taken around Southend’s Open Mic scene over the past two years. A fascinating insight into the musical talent that can be seen for free, circulating the taverns of Southend.

The Experimental Pinhole Camera Assignment – earlier in the summer we asked artists to respond with unconventional approaches to constructing a pinhole camera and we will be showing a selection of these cameras during the show.

Open until 25 September.

CoExist Galleries, TAP, North Rd, Southend, SS0 7AB

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