Rachel Wolf
The art of alchemy is the transmutation of matter, a process wherein something is changed from one state to another in order to achieve a higher or more valuable form. My work takes from the alchemists this idea of transmutative elevation, which in my projects is achieved through color and chemical action. My principal method of working involves directly exposing photographic materials to light and chemicals. These essential matters become the tools, subjects and direct chemical process that create the final image. I choose to return to these irreducible elements, the invisible tools of analogue photography, in order to produce a new, tangible photographic subject. Taking the camera away from photography doesn’t remove the possibility for an image, instead it provides space for proposing images for an un-lensed, visual world.