Cyanotype printing is a 19th century photographic technique which uses photosensitive solution to draw with sunlight onto paper. I began these works during the lockdown in 2020 as a way to physically and temporally connect with the outside world and the elements, and negotiate the sense of claustrophobia.
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I began to explore and respond, very viscerally and phsycially, to poses and themes from art history that I might have previously viewed in a detached, distanced or objective way. The poses are a direct record of the action of their making and the figure is arranged in response to the edges of the paper, which was cut from a large roll. Some of the poses were responses to chapters and poses in Kenneth Clark's The Nude (1956), particularly Energy and Pathos, and references to bathers, mythological figures, reclining figures, and caryatids. The poses are a direct record of the action of their making. I would develop aches and bruises from holding the poses, waiting for the image to be recorded by the sunlight. The image was something I couldn't see and had to surrender to, aware only of the points of contact between my body and the paper, and the light overhead, until I rinsed the paper in the shower cubicle.