Current work – Page 2

Opening Reception of PULSE

February 9, 2016 By Anne-Laure Autin

Last Friday was a pretty amazing night for me! The Inglewood Fine Arts gallery had its opening reception for the show PULSE, featuring beautiful pieces by Jeff Cruz, Andrew Millar and Royce Howland as well as my latest series Locked-in. It is quite an incredible feeling to see people react to the work without filters, to see their expression when they hear about what happened, to witness their interest about the process of printing VanDyke Browns (“That’s why the edges are so beautiful too! I wondered if they were paintings instead of photographs.”). I felt really privileged to be there and am incredibly grateful that Michel Arseneau curated the work for his show.

Someone asked me “So when did this happen?” referring to my actual locked-in experience. And I realised, it was less than 10 months ago… Not even 10 months!! And SO MUCH has happened since. I wouldn’t have been able to guess that the most frightening moment of my life would have led to this – a whole series exhibited for the first time in an Art gallery in Canada. My work changed – or maybe I just finally let it be. I can’t really explain why, except perhaps with this image that I quite like: seeds need to be buried in darkness in order to sprout and grow.

I want to thank every person who has been by my side on this journey (you know who you are). And I was very grateful to see so many friendly faces at the opening itself!

Here are a few iphone pictures of the show – the work hanging before the place was crowded as well as some people snaps (photos taken by whoever held onto my phone, crowd pictures by Michel and surprise portrait of me by Sebastian Kingsford-Nendsa, middle-school photographer)

Oh and if you’re in Calgary but couldn’t make it to the opening, the exhibit is on till the end of February.

Locked-in, in print

November 1, 2015 By Anne-Laure Autin

Today is an extremely exciting day for me – here is the full Locked-in series in print!
The past couple of months have been such an incredible ride as it’s been quite the journey since that day in April where something glitched in my brain. And it’s extremely comforting to me to see that something so terrifying back then could lead to something so rewarding right now.

Here’s the Artist Statement for Locked-in. I hope you enjoy those pieces as much as I’ve loved creating them!

LOCKED-IN

A few months ago I had a growing migraine attack while lying in bed on a Saturday morning. Migraines are new to me so I was surprised to sense tingling spreading across my limbs. I suddenly felt something pop in my head and pulse through me. Right then paralysis took me over like a wave would. I couldn’t move, couldn’t even open my eyes, couldn’t call for help. My mind was fully on but my body was no longer responding to its command. I was locked-in. It only lasted a short while but it was the most terrifying event of my life so far. In what started as an attempt to exorcise my angst, I decided to explore through photography the anguish I had felt during this episode.

Beyond my very personal connection to this body of work, I have always been drawn to contrasting juxtapositions. And I’m mostly interested in a growing realisation that oppositions and contradictions are not always necessarily mutually exclusive as logic would dictate – for instance an ugly incident can also have some beauty to it. Reflecting on having been locked-in, I was fascinated by the idea that I had felt very much in motion qua brain while totally paralysed physically. I set out to highlight those two opposite States of Being happening concurrently by representing visually the different stages of my incident combining multiple exposures digitally. The use of long exposure times in particular allowed me to convey movement, depicting the agitation of my spirit. I believe digital impressions would have been too sharp and crisp for the subject matter and I therefore chose to hand print the series as Van Dyke Browns. This antique alternative process gives the final prints a certain softness, fitting with my experience, which adds to the slightly surreal feel of the work. This in turn also acts as an allegory for the complex and obscure link between our body and our mind – a connection we rarely truly deeply contemplate, except maybe on the days when it stops working properly.

The locked-in series is a limited edition of 5, printed as Van Dyke Browns on Rives Cotton Rag.

Captive | 7.5 x 5 inches / 19 x 13 cm | 2015

Pulse | 7.5 x 5 inches / 19 x 13 cm | 2015

Wave | 7.5 x 5 inches / 19 x 13 cm | 2015

Fight | 7.5 x 5 inches / 19 x 13 cm | 2015

Chrysalis | 8 x 4 inches / 20 x 10 cm | 2015

Bound | 7.5 x 5 inches / 19 x 13 cm | 2015

Tingling Chaos | 7.5 x 5 inches / 19 x 13 cm | 2015

Blind Mute | 7.5 x 5 inches / 19 x 13 cm | 2015

Back to the darkroom

October 30, 2015 By Anne-Laure Autin

Putting the finishing touches to the Locked-in series, printed as VanDyke Browns. Almost there… Gotta love alternative processes!!

Digital Negatives for Van Dyke Browns

September 21, 2015 By Anne-Laure Autin

Today I’ve generated my first digital negative for ‘PULSE’ on a printer I have affectionately nick-named ‘The Beast’ and I can already tell it’s not going to be my last…

In the next couple of weeks, I’ll be busy with what I know is going to be a lengthy iterative process where testing by trial and error will be strongly dominated by, huh, error… The idea is to use a late 1800’s contact printing process called Van Dyke Brown on each of the 10 photographs of my latest Locked-in series. I’m incredibly excited!!

Granted, I am not particularly looking forward to the weather vagaries of Holland where the sun plays hide and seek (mostly hide), as I have the feeling that my exposure times will not only strongly vary but likely will demand more than 10 minutes on average (whereas, if I lived in California, I’d need less than 2…). The minimal developing time for one print when you include the different washing baths is about 50min. That’s not counting the time to prep and dry the paper. I’m not the most patient of people in everyday life but I am a perfectionist when it comes to my work so I’m sure it will all balance out. I just accept the fact that some cursing might be involved in the process… I’m also going to play with ferric ammonium citrate, tartaric acid, silver nitrate and sodium thiosulphate and, well, given my track record, I feel somewhat compelled to promise: I will be extremely careful!

The thing is, I know it’s going to be a labor of love. I’m also convinced it’s going to be so worth it!!

More on locked-in

June 21, 2015 By Anne-Laure Autin

First can I ask you this: when in your life have you been profoundly scared?

I’ll tell you mine. At 18: I choke on a peanut, unable to breathe while people around me laugh, thinking I’m joking. At 24: my car aquaplanes during a storm on a New York country road and I nearly crash into oncoming traffic. At 28: having just given birth to my first child, I run behind a security guard at 5am unable to keep up as he’s rushing our 17 hours old to the neonatal ICU. She’s in hypothermia and isn’t responsive anymore. At 31: I am in quarantine holding my second child, looking at the tubes and wires attached to her. The pediatrician tells me the oxygen supply will hopefully soon address the cerebral hypoxia caused by the bronchiolitis. He adds that RSV kills infants under 8 weeks old also in another way: their heart sometimes just stops, without a warning. My baby is 7 weeks old. Around 11pm I’m alone with her when all alarms go off – her heartbeat isn’t registering anymore. It happens 5 times that night. At 35: I slip on ice and fall on the back of my head, I feel my brain softly jiggle in my skull and all goes black. Today: I feel locked-in during migraine attacks, unable to move – my mind held prisoner, trying to escape my immobile body.

Is it surprising that all those events were related to the fear of death? After all, there are plenty of other times that we feel scared and they’re not always bad – say, a first kiss. But maybe fear is not the right word. We are nervous, anxious maybe, but we are (hopefully) not actually terrified. When you’re confronted with your mortality or that of your loved ones, you get to know terror.

I know this image looks eerie. It might even be frightening.
Good.
I’m not trying to be cheeky here – but Good indeed 🙂 . Cause I WAS frightened. I was out of my mind terrified… If you feel some kind of anguish or at least discomfort looking at it, then I will have managed in conveying something that resonates deep within me.

This, this is work in progress and I’m told you should never show work in progress and instead wait till the whole series is completed. But it is too important to me and I guess I need to share a bit of it. There is no doubt in my mind that I want to shoot this – I need to shoot this. Better yet I love to shoot this!! If you’re worried about me, please don’t be 😉 First off, this is probably the most “disturbing” photograph I’ve created so far. But mostly, I still like to see the beauty in life – who knows, maybe I’ll also do a series on Love (I’ve got some ideas…)!

Right now though, this stuff excites me and I am finally allowing myself to break free of all kinds of little mental cages I had for myself. So I do hope you love this work, despite or exactly because of its strangeness. Cause I’ll continue exploring this. I have to. Is it part of an healing process? Quite possibly. Is it an artistic release? Absolutely. It is personal? Hell yes. Is it universal? I think it is too.