Vessels of Light

Every plant has its own spirit and distinctive character. Leading enigmatic lives, they are vibrant, active, often ambitious creatures expanding into the spaces we share. Ideally, our relationships are mutually beneficial.  When we spend time together, plants sense our presence, our lives intertwine.

Lumen printing, a direct contact photographic process, has been utilised to record aspects of the idiosyncratic characters of familiar plants in a domestic garden. The subjects were laid on light sensitive silver gelatine papers and exposed to sunlight for a period of time. The results of direct contact printing seem to allow us a glimpse of something beyond our ordinary perception inviting us to contemplate the mysterious inner lives of our vegetal companion species.

Each lumen print is unique, containing physical traces of organic plant material transferred into the paper during an extended, alchemical exposure to the sun resulting in a sometimes surprising array of colours.

The lumen printing process took place in Sheffield  gardens where the plants were growing.  Parts of plants were taken for printing (leaves, blossoms, stems) but the plants themselves lived on. 

Some of the lumen prints have been fixed (for image stability when exposed to light) and exhibited as is  (e.g. artdotearth exhibition, Dartington, 2018). The original lumen prints have also been digitally scanned before fixing to record the colours at their most vivid.  In the case of this selection, the scans have been used to enlarge and reprint meeting required guidelines for portfolio submission to the RHS Botanical Art and Photography Show exhibited at Saatchi Gallery, 2024 .

The selection of images shown here comprised the exhibition portfolio awarded a Silver-Gilt medal by the Royal Horticultural Society but the original work is more extensive.