The Photographer's Eye Gallery in Escondido will host an exhibit by two exceptional artists,
Debra Achen and
Diana Bloomfield, award winners in the gallery's 2023 (S)Light of Hand Alternative Process Juried Exhibition.
Bloomfield, of Raleigh, North Carolina, was honored by juror Ann Jastrab, Executive Director of the
Center for Photographic Arts in Carmel, California, for her floral print, ''Hydrangea,'' a tricolor gum over cyanotype print.
Achen, of Monterey, California, was honored by The Photographer's Eye Director Donna Cosentino for ''Shoring Up,'' a folded and stitched pigment print that references climate change.
The exhibit will take place at The Photographer's Eye Gallery, 326 E Grand Ave., from March 9 until April 6, in conjunction with women's history month. The two artists will discuss their unique photographic processes and inspirations during an artists' talk at The Grand, 321 E. Grand Ave., across the street from the gallery, at 3 p.m. on March 9. That will be followed by a reception for the artists at The Photographer's Eye, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Debra Achen has always loved nature and landscape photography, and she recently applied her art to address climate change. Where Achen's work stands apart is that after shooting her image, she folds, rips, scorches, and even stitches the prints, creating works that evoke a planet in crisis.
Achen's concerns about our environment grew while she was shooting landscapes in Monterey and noticed trees that were dying because of prolonged drought, golden hills that were cracking under relentless heat, and coastlines that were eroding as sea levels rose.
And that was before a spate of wildfires incinerated thousands of acres of California forests.
''I started noticing when I was out shooting in the field that I would find myself thinking about what's this landscape going to be like, how much of this forest is going to be left for the next generations,'' Achen said. ''I started to feel nostalgic about the photographs I was taking. I was feeling like I'm documenting this for future generations, and that's a sad thing.''
She then discovered ways to hand manipulate her prints by folding, tearing, scorching, and even stitching, which provided an appropriate metaphor for what she saw occurring all around her.
So was born her series, ''Folding and Mending,'' which captures the concept of ''a world folding in on itself from the impacts of climate change,'' she says.
Achen experimented with various types of paper to find the one best suited for the manipulation her prints would undergo, and she settled on agave, which is both sturdy and environmentally sustainable.
Diana Bloomfield specializes in 19th century printing techniques, with a concentration on gum bichromate, platinum and cyanotype processes. Her photographic vision springs from the world of memories, and her images carry the flavor of waking up and trying to recall a dream.
Her work, she says, ''is more about holding onto memories, which are always fugitive and ever shifting, and I wanted to get them down on paper, a tangible memory.''
Bloomfield began her career when shooting with film cameras and developing prints in the darkroom, which she hated. When she discovered platinum and palladium processing, and then cyanotype and gum bichromate, she felt she had found methods that best suited the effect she was striving for. They also offered the advantage that she could make prints in ambient light, using a light-tight box.
Her printing process entails creating transparencies from a digital image, then exposing these on contact paper using ultraviolet light. The gum bichromate process requires multiple transparencies of separate colors, and she exposes them several times to deliver her desired result. ''The possibilities of what you can do there are truly endless,'' she says. ''It's a nice blending of 19th and 21st century technologies.''
Bloomfield also creates images using digital and toy cameras, and even Polaroids, because these offer images with a gauzy, fluid aura.
''You get that dreamy, memory effect — you're never quite sure of what you're getting,'' she said, which is a creative space where Bloomfield thrives.
