The Passage of Time I, Chromogenic print, 127 x 170, Edition of 1 + 1 AP, 2021 



The Passage of Time V, Chromogenic print, 127 x 170 cm, Edition of 1 + 1AP,  2020 


The Passage of Time VIII, Chromogenic print, 127 x 170 cm, Edition of 1 + 1AP, 2021


The Passage of Time IV, Chromogenic print, 127 x 170 cm, Edition of 1 + 1 AP, 2020 


The Passage of Time II, Chromogenic print, 127 x 170 cm, Edition of 1 + 1 AP, 2021


The Passage of Time VII, Chromogenic print, 127 x 170 cm, Edition of 1 + 1AP, 2021


The Passage of Time VI, Chromogenic print, 127 x 170 cm, Edition of 1 + 1 AP, 2021 



The Passage of Time III, Chromogenic Print, 127 x 170 cm, Edition 1 +1AP, 2020


The Passage of Time X, Chromogenic print, 127 x 170 cm, Edition of 1 + 1AP,  2021



The Passage of Time IX, Chromogenic print, 127 x 170 cm, Edition of 1 + 1AP,  2021 

The Passage of Time (2020-2021)

My practice consists of camera-less photography, created by manipulating photosensitive paper, light and time. The work reveals traces of its lived experience, machinery and the artist’s hand, questioning the boundaries of photography, its intersection with painting and sculpture and the use of abstraction to access the subconscious.

Challenging the preconception that the camera photographs the world that already exists, I decided to remove the camera from the process. The darkroom becomes my camera. I step inside and become part of the mechanism. I work in complete darkness, trading my visual senses for the physical, investigating the edges of perception.  I am interested in how the visual can stimulate non-visual senses and vice versa.

My research embraces Western and Eastern philosophy as well as Abstract Expressionism, neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy as well as practical experimentation and the “Slow Living” movement. My work celebrates slowness and even meditates on it. I slow down time dramatically in the process of making a print, allowing the image to mature itself and develop.

I am interested in what happens when multiple layers of different experiences superpose on top of another – how one experience may disappear as another emerges. I see this as reflective of our identities, which evolve with time and place and experience. 

© Svetlana Talanova. 2021