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images that haunt us
All images: Archival Pigment Prints on Hahnemuhle Fine Art Paper
This series celebrates flowers – capturing their different phases and the variety of shapes and colours – each telling their own story. In beautiful detail it depicts how the light emphasises the elegance of the stem, or how it catches the leaf, or how it allows us to catch a glimpse of the brittle petals and the burst of colours when in full bloom. The viewer is invited to look closer and sometimes even take a step back, because in that instant – hidden aspects emerge – like a choreography, a fabulous dance.
‘A Declaration of Love, flowers in Dutch light’ is a series that symbolises life.
Flowers naturally bloom in all their strength, vulnerability and beauty – with elegance and grace – poetically captured in that single moment in time, never to be repeated again.
It is a serenade to life and love! [quoted from Stella Gommans website]
All images: Archival Pigment Prints on Hahnemuhle Fine Art Paper
“Flowers in Dutch Light”
Taking inspiration from the mastery of Dutch Golden Age painters and by blending this with 20th century photographers and their use of light, Stella Gommans’ resulting work is poetic, aesthetic, elegant and minimalistic. For Gommans – a former dancer and a largely self-taught photographer, nature in its broadest sense is an unfailing source of inspiration.
This exquisite body of work celebrates flowers – capturing their different phases and the variety of shapes and colours – each telling their own story. In beautiful detail she depicts how the light emphasises the elegance of the stem, or how it catches the leaf, or how it allows us to catch a glimpse of the brittle petals and the burst of colours when in full bloom. Gommans invites the viewer to look closer and sometimes even take a step back, because in that instant – hidden aspects emerge – like a choreography, a fabulous dance.
‘A Declaration of Love, flowers in Dutch light’ is a series that symbolises life.
Flowers naturally bloom in all their strength, vulnerability and beauty – with elegance and grace – poetically captured in that single moment in time, never to be repeated again. Quoted from Elliott Gallery
All images: Archival Pigment Prints on Hahnemuhle Fine Art Paper
“Hana” means “flower” and “bi” means “fire”, so “Hanabi” roughly translates to “fire flowers”. The Japanese call fireworks Hanabi. The name suggests not only a physical resemblance, but also an existential one. Fireworks bloom, but only for a moment, dazzling onlookers before fading into oblivion.
Hanabi (lit. flower fire or fire flower) were popularised and developed during the resplendent days of Edo and have come to hold cultural significance in Japan both in physical displays and metaphorically as a symbol of ephemeral beauty.
Hobley shot these series before the Covid-19 pandemic. Later, during the lock-down she experimented with different kind of papers, developing processes and toning. The last one of this post is a cyanotype print toned in tea and coffee: “This photograph was taken on a shoot last year and printed using a large format negative and sunlight, during the lockdown.” quoted from Hobley’s Facebook page