Squaring The Circles of Confusion
Giving the exhibition it’s full name Squaring the Circles of Confusion: Neo-Pictorialism in the 21st Century.
The exhibition is curated by Zelda Cheatle, RPS Honorary Fellow, and features work from Takashi Arai, Susan Derges, David George, Joy Gregory, Tom Hunter, Ian Phillips McLaren, Céline Bodin, and Spencer Rowell. The exhibition will be on display at RPS Gallery, Bristol from 9 September to 6 November 2022
Opening hours: Wednesday to Sunday, 10am – 5pm, free admission
Salt Printing Masterclass at London Metropolitan University
This week I taught a Salt printing masterclass at The School of Art, Architecture & Design which forms part of London Metropolitan University.
Salt Printing is a contact printing process, which means that the final print will be the same size as your negative.
It was great to see the students immersed and having a great time making their own salt prints, all of which I’m happy to say turned out really well. It was a pleasure for me to see them working, enjoying and keeping this 183 year old process alive. Some of them even went back into the darkroom the following day to do more – happy days!
Personally, I think it’s fantastic that the head of the department at The School of Art, Architecture & Design push back the waves to make these masterclasses available to the BA photography students, giving them a larger creative tool-box, allowing them a wider visual language to express themselves.
It’s hard to imagine a time where there was no such thing as photography, especially today when everyone takes photographs.
Salted paper was the first photographic invention, for photography as we know it today.
Henry Fox Talbot’s discovery – making a negative in camera and using that negative to make multiple prints is the basis of all photography today. The Daguerrotype may historically mark the introduction of photography to the world but it only produced a single image.
Historically salt printing was thought to be dull and dead looking because it needed a contrasty negative for the long exposure scale – today with digital technology we can make digital negatives using curves in photoshop to suit salt printing and other alternative processes and creating prints with a beautiful longer tonal range.
Below:
Some of my own hand made Salt prints and behind the scene photographs of the Salt Printing Masterclass.
Many thanks to Kasia Kowalska for the behind the scene photos.
If you are interested in photography workshops, masterlasses, mentoring, or one to one photographic tuition, please email me at ian at ianphillipsmclaren.com
New Book & Art Cards, Now Available
I’m happy to announce that our new book and art cards for our exhibition ‘Squaring The Circles of Confusion: Neo-Pictorialism in the 21st century’, are now available from the Royal Photographic Society website/shop on this link here.
This book accompanies the exhibition of the same title which will be shown in the RPS Gallery in summer 2022, postponed from 2020. Through the work of eight contemporary photographers: Takashi Arai, Céline Bodin, Susan Derges, David George, Joy Gregory, Tom Hunter, Ian Phillips McLaren and Spencer Rowell it looks at how the craft of photography is being explored by leading artists. Making use of processes from daguerreotype, cyanotype, collodion to photogravure, kallitype and film in their work each uses historical techniques and approaches to make contemporary statements in their work. Introductory essays from Alice Zoo and Michael Pritchard discuss neo-pictorialism and the RPS’s role in pictorial photography and a glossary explains the processes and specialist terms used. The book illustrates all the work to be shown in the exhibition.
A very special thanks to curator Zelda Cheatle.
The book is available to buy here
Squaring the Circles of Confusion will be opening in 2022
The art cards of the artists work are available here
Wire Pear
On June 17th I did a practicle workshop exploring themes pertinent to artist Matthew Darbyshireʼs practice and inspired by his new public artwork Hercules Meets Galatea. With museums and collections closed for many months and artists having limited opportunities to show and share artworks, this workshop was designed to consider alternative ways to collect, curate, make and present – from our own home, studio, or college environment.
These sessions were delivered through a series of conversations, creative prompts, practical activities and playful assignments. The group were to test a series of activities and upload images and responses to a shared dropbox. The outcomes will be utilized in the production of a booklet/zine of resources and activities for distribution to a wider audience.
I found items around my studio; a roll of wire, paper and string this led me to the black paper then the wooden balls and the wooden sticks. I then had to lay them out in order of their connection.
I made some fast drawings of the wire, starting out with 3 in a row,
then I did five as quick as I could – after making the drawings, I thought that they looked like wire drawings of pears from above. I then did a single wire drawing of a pear shape. The following day after the workshop I looked at the drawings again, I picked up the armatage wire and decided to turn it into a pear.
I have always loved pears and have photographed pear still lifes.
I have been asked to exhibit one of my pear images which I printed as an albumen print next year (spring 2022) as part of the exhibition ‘Squaring the Circles of Confusion: Neo-Pictorialism in the 21st century’ for the Royal Photographic Society.
My love for pears extend to me growing a couple of different varieties in my garden.
I have a page on pears in the ‘projects’ section titled ‘Pirum’
Squaring the Circles of Confusion – Exhibition
Squaring the Circles of Confusion; Neo-Pictorialism in the 21st century exhibition.
This new exhibition, curated by Zelda Cheatle, celebrates the work of artists Takashi Arai, Susan Derges, David George, Joy Gregory, Tom Hunter, Ian Phillips McLaren, Celine Bodin and Spencer Rowell who each bring a pictorialist approach, through aesthetics or process to their contemporary work, addressing important issues and encouraging the beauty of the photographic image.
Date and Time
10 April until 21 June 2020
Thursday – Sunday 10am – 5pm
RPS House
337-340
Paintworks
Arnos Vale
Bristol
BS4 3AR