#ferrique

Flowering blue agave (Agave franzonsinii), Moroccan garden, Tatihou island, France. 

Lighthouse, Cotentin, France.  Cyanotype on Arches Platine, 26 x 33 cm - Ferric series

Port Lévi jetty, Cotentin, France.  Palladium-toned kallitype on Arches Platine, 35 x 44 cm - Ferric series

For many years now, Elise Prudhomme has been exploring the landscapes of the North Cotentin using large format film cameras. She bears witness to a new picturesque, fruit of the clement Gulf Stream and of human intervention in his quest for the exotic and renewal.

The results of the technical prowess of a few passionate scholars in the adaptation of numerous plant species from diverse biotopes, such as that of the Canary Islands, have swarmed in gardens and coastal areas where they consume the landscape with gusto.  They offer a new aesthetic in these places preserved from urbanization, rubbing shoulders with artifacts from the Second World War and older remains that testify to the transmutation of this now rural and livestock-oriented landscape since the Neolithic era.

However, there is a resilience of nature which allows an attractive continuity of the landscape.  The monolithic coastline of granite is an impassable border where man cannot make his mark.  Both a vector of transformation and a protected target, the Cotentin coastline is still desirable.

Elise brings these landscapes to light in her Parisian darkroom, experimenting with iron-salt processes to make her prints.  The noble metals used in her blends (gold, silver and palladium) give various tones - sepia, Prussian blue, deep warm black - which, like the efforts of botanists, are the result of a long continuum of learning.

Batterie du Brulay, Cotentin, France.  Gold-toned kallitype on Arches Platine, 26 x 33 cm

Serre tropical, Cotentin, France.  Gold-toned kallitype on Arches Platine, 26 x 33 cm

Studio Galerie B&B présente le travail en cours d’Elise Prudhomme intitulé « Ferrique ».

Depuis plusieurs années, Élise explore les paysages du Nord Cotentin à l’aide d’appareils argentiques grand format et témoigne d’un nouveau pittoresque fruit des douceurs du Gulf Stream et de l’intervention humaine dans sa quête d’exotisme et de renouveau.

C’est dans son laboratoire parisien qu’Elise effectue la mise en lumière de ces paysages et expérimente des processus aux sels de fer pour la réalisation de ses tirages.