APPLE TREES - a passionate record by photogram
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Sylvia believes that the camera can sometimes be limiting and instead chooses to let nature be part of the art processes.
An avid experimenter with alternative camera-less processes, Sylvia creates gorgeous and unique photograms of each of her apple tree subjects. Rather than sampling plants through a lens Sylvia has mastered projects to be designed and in harmony with apple trees. Light sensitive cloths are draped and pinned around a tree to allow for long exposures. The refracted light through the tree leaves are recorded by the cloths and create volumetric x-ray like images of her living orchard subjects. Sylvia's photographic apple imagery show both scientific principles of light recording and artistic innovation. As an artist, Sylvia is the one a few in North America, to have mastered a technique to create full portraits of orchard trees in situ. Throughout, Sylvia's work displays a strong sense of the physical connection between the original subject matter, the completed image, and art history. 
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The artist uses two historical photo techniques to complete her projects. Firstly, the photogram is an made without a camera by placing objects directly onto light-sensitive materials and then exposing these to light to create a unique and singular image. The photogram is the oldest photo image recording process known. Her use of the cyanotype completes her art. The cyanotype is is a photographic printing process that results in a blue coloured print - known for many years as blueprints. The cyanotype is a chemically stable image produced by two chemicals: ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanide. As a photographic process it was promoted by its inventor, Sir John Herschel, as a way to record drawings and etchings through a photo imaging technique.
Sylvia plays with the associative value of the cyanotype to make reproductions by rigging her photographic cloths and papers to let the plant self-record itself.
Sylvia plays with the associative value of the cyanotype to make reproductions by rigging her photographic cloths and papers to let the plant self-record itself.
Sylvia has had a strong interest in local flora and fauna. Over the last decade - she has become passionate about regional and wild apple species as well as food production.
She set up a social enterprise in Scotland to allow a small village to make the world's first photogram based artisan biscuits. The Lumsden Biscuit has gained a strong following in Scotland both among photo art collectors and food enthusiasts.
Her first art studies of apple orchards were undertaken in Northern Ireland in an attempt to celebrate the Bramley apple.
This examination of local culture and apple growing was soon followed by work in Latvia - where Sylvia was commissioned to create a series of apple murals to assist with a town's economic regeneration.
She set up a social enterprise in Scotland to allow a small village to make the world's first photogram based artisan biscuits. The Lumsden Biscuit has gained a strong following in Scotland both among photo art collectors and food enthusiasts.
Her first art studies of apple orchards were undertaken in Northern Ireland in an attempt to celebrate the Bramley apple.
This examination of local culture and apple growing was soon followed by work in Latvia - where Sylvia was commissioned to create a series of apple murals to assist with a town's economic regeneration.