What is a Chemigram?A chemigram is an image created on photographic paper that is neither photograph nor painting but a weird middle ground. To create a chemigram you simply take out of piece of photographic paper in a lit environment and paint a variety of resists onto it, before developing it in an equally chaotic fashion. To clarify- a resist is any material or substance that “resists” the developing chemicals, creating a barrier between the film and the developer. A couple of things commonly used as a resist are: nail vanish, butter, egg, honey, oil, cellotape and grease. Which can all be applied to the light sensitive paper in any manner you see fit, same goes for the developer and the fix. A Brief History of the ChemigramThe Chemigram was invented by Pierre Cordier on November the 10th 1956. When he accidentally stumbled upon the process while trying to make a birthday card. Cordier used a piece of photographic paper and some nail varnish he found lying around to write a simple note on the paper. When he developed it he noticed the nail varnish had begun to move and evolve into something new. And that became Cordier’s first chemigram. After discovering this new type of photograph Cordier started experimenting with different materials and processes creating a wide array of images. Despite all of this it wasn’t until several years later that Cordier went public with his “chemigram”, encouraging other to take up the technique and evolve it into the amalgamation of painting and photography it is today. Historical PhotographersPierre CordierPierre Cordier was and is a Belgian artist/photographer who is considered by many to be the creator of the chemigram. Born in 1933 he has made a wealth of chemigrams despite being self taught, well self taught until 1958 when he was invited by Otto Stienert to attend a course at his school in Germany. Cordier has exhibited his works intentionally including places such as the MoMA in New York and the VA in London. Josef H. NeumannJosef H. Neumann (born 1953) is a German “photo artist” who is believed to have invented the “Chemogram” in 1974. This so called Chemogram is an advancement of the “Chemigram” invented in 1956 by Pierre Cordier. Due to the very similar names it appears the two words and inventors are often mixed up. The difference between a Chemigram and a Chemogram is that a Chemogram first uses an enlarger to enlarge a smaller photographic image onto a larger piece of light sensitive paper. Before then applying a resist to the said paper and developing it as one would a Chemigram. Neumann also seems to combine different chemicals and a type of coloured photographic paper to achieve colourful chemigram/chemograms. But essentially, a chemogram is just a Chemigram with an extra step at the beginning and a confusingly similar name. Contemporary PhotographersNorman SarachekNorman Sarachek is an artist and photographer currently residing in America . He works mainly in chemigrams which he uses to convey a narrative. His inspirations include traditional Chinese and Japanese brushwork and calligraphy, something which is very apparent from looking at his works. Sarachek uses such equipment as calligraphy brushes and chopsticks to achieve the fine brush like lines he does with his chemigrams. Analysis of WorkThis is a Chemigram by Norman Sarachek titled Kokoro (meaning soul or heart in Japanese). It is 7 x 6 inches and was made in 2004. As is quite apparent to see, Sarachek was influenced by traditional Japanese calligraphy when making this piece. Though I can not find anywhere that explicitly states this, I assume it was made with a calligraphy brush, as I know from my research that Sarachek has indeed used such items in his chemigram works. What Sarachek does however say is that he uses a “soft resist” to create the fine expressive lines in the collection this piece is from. Chloe McCarrickChloe McCarrick is a fine artist and photographer living in London, who uses a variety of alternative photographic methods including but (not limited to) Cyanotypes and Chemigrams. Most of her collections feature an array of abstract mixed media pieces. McCarrick’s work has been exhibited at places such as the “The Other Art Fair”(2019) in America and the “Salon Nationale Des Beaux Arts”(2019) in France, to name a few. Analysis of WorkThis is a “chemigram fine art print” by Chloe McCarrick made in 2018 titled Oceanus. However despite it’s label, it appears to be combination of a couple different camera-less techniques including pinhole and chemigram. McCarrick states that to create this image she first took and developed a pinhole onto negative film. Before then painting on top of the film using chemicals. After she scanned it in she also added some digital coloration, which I presume is the blue hue present throughout the image. McCarrrick says her inspiration for this piece comes from the planet Neptune and Greek and Roman mythology. Or more specifically this piece is meant to represent the “the God Oceanus (Neptune), the divine personification of the sea - a river encircling the world”, so McCarrick states on her website. If this is the intention then it could explain why McCarrick decided to make this piece a circular frame - to further link with her idea of the planet Neptune. However with that being said it could’ve just been a happy coincidence as from the looks of it, a lot of McCarrick’s work is framed in a similar fashion. Another little video from my tutor on chemigrams. I particularly found this video rather helpful as there is just so much to remember about the chemigram making process, that is quite different from the other forms of analog photography we had been taught so far. My ChemigramsThese are my chemigrams. The first one I did was the black one. I created it using egg to try and almost an gradient-like effect. By flicking the resist across the paper. Needless to say but it didn't work out as intended. This is probably down to the fact that the egg resist was a lot thinner then I initially thought and so none of that flicking actually showed up. In hindsight this was probably because I used up all the resist trying to create the patterny effect I was going for. This is my second chemigram, to create this one I decided to drop a few drops of syrup onto the paper. And then used the backend of a paint brush to scrape into the paper, I was hoping this would leave lines around the syrup dots however this process clearly didn't work as no such lines are visible on the finished product. I could've perhaps done with either pushing harder on the brush or using a different tool. But despite this slight disappointment, I still rather like how it turned out. I particularly like how the dots blended with eachother to make these abstract shapes I seem to have. As for my third chemigram, this one is an amalgamation of PVA glue. For this one I had the idea to delliberly draw a pattern with the resist. And so I choose to apply the glue from the tube as one would like a piping bag but instead in a honey comb pattern to the photographic paper. This is the result. One of the problems with glue (something that I did not consider) is that of course it is rather runny and when you're trying to create a distinct pattern with it, well, needless to say it doesn't alway go as intended. Hence the smudged lines. All things considered though I still rather like little piece though. This is my forth chemigram. For this one I used a knife and butter in a vertical pattern for the resist. Before I then developed the image in the standard way. This was the result. Out of all of my chemigrams I think this one is probably my favourite as I really like how the knife and butter made such a striking scraping pattern. And finally this is my 5th chemigram. For this last one I decided to combine a couple of the resists together. Firstly I put a strip of tape down the middle of the image, then on the left I sprayed some cooking oil and on the right I drizzled some PVA glue. Before again developing it by spraying the image with developer and then fixer. Although the end result isn't quite as I imagined, I still rather like this little experiment. Especially the bit in the top left corner where the oil has combined with the dev and fix to give a very interesting marble effect. The bit I'm not too keen on however is the glue part as I thought it would be more stringy then it is but I suppose that's probably down to me putting too much glue on it again. As for the tape though I expected it to give a sharp line it seems a lot more skewiff. I suppose this may've have been a result of the tape not being properly taped down. Even though I swear I did tape it properly but I digress. Future UseIf I am quite honest I did not enjoy the process or making chemigrams and so I find it very unlikely I will employ this technique again. However with that being said if I did use it again, I could perhaps use it as an alternative means of creating paintings, something I have seen other artist do with chemigrams. But again it is very unlikely. Health and Safety
Of course there is also the health and safety of the actual resists used to consider. Resists used and their risks are as follows:
Reference Links
Camera-less photography: Pierre Cordier
http://www.pierrecordier.com/index.html
http://chemogramme.de/artist/ https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Chemogram
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZroTh3mOlNo
https://www.chloemccarrick.com/blogs/about/about-chloe-mccarrick
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