—Lucid Dreams /collaboration/
co-created with Itamar Freed
Artistic duo, Itamar Freed and Kristina Chan present photographic works that search for vanishing notions of realness in the natural world. Influenced by post-impressionism, Japanese prints and contemporary photography, their work questions the veracity of the photograph in the tension between the real and the fantastic. As in a lucid dream, the artists control the narrative, characters and environment in the depicted landscapes. The work features photographs of places and sites the artists have visited, combined with images from curated environments such as museums, zoos, and digital materials. Freed and Chan question how images of places might displace or augment their understanding and memory of them.
Each work began as a digital photograph that was then printed on Japanese paper as cyanotypes, lithographs, etchings and pigment prints. By combining technological and traditional media the works are displaced in time and space, decontextualizing the image. The subject is isolated allowing the selective role of the human lens to come into focus. The seen and the associations and memories of the artists merge to form a narrative between the viewer and the place. An experiential space is crafted between fact and fiction, fantasy and reality. This allows the artists to reflect on their own displacement.
Oh Deer
above Pigment print on Japanese Paper, Edition of 5, 2019.
right Pigment print on Japanese Paper, Edition of 5, 2019.
Orange Tree
Ferns
below left Cyanotype on Japanese Paper, Edition of 5, 2019.
Aloes
below right Cyanotype on Japanese Paper, Edition of 5, 2019.
Pigment Print on Japanese Paper, Edition of 5, 2019.
Barred Owl
Dream in Blue
is composed from 12 individual cyanotypes, a 19th century early photographic technique. It is one of the first developed and has a strong link to botanical, scientific and horticultural histories. The work is entirely handmade. Cyanotypes are a camera-less form of direct photography that uses contact positives. The long fibres of the Japanese paper are unique in that they are extremely strong while also being very thin. The works are framed without glass to show this texture and how the paper naturally “breathes.”
Dream in Blue depicts various endangered and constructed environments that the artists have visited. By merging these places into one landscape, the artists also merge reality with memory, both individual and collective. This is where the lucid dream begins, and is the starting point for the artistic duo’s resulting series.
Cypress Tree I, II
Etching with chine colle, edition of 10, 2019.
Peacock
Pigment Print on Japanese Paper, Edition of 5, 2019.
Beers London
Summer Marathon July 2020, photos by Damian Griffiths
Exhibited
Litvak Contemporary, Israel
Beers London, U.K.
Royal Academy London, U.K.
Royal Photographic Society, U.K.
Nord Art, Germany
Photo LA, U.S.A.
Photo IS:RAEL, Israel
Hancock Gallery, U.K.
Edinburgh Printmakers, Scotland
Actinic Festival Edinburgh, Scotland
Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair, U.K.
Travers Smith CSR Awards, U.K.
ARTIQ, U.K