Light shadow (5.5 sec : 15 hrs : 15 sec + 45 sec)

Danica Chappell is a Melbourne based photographer who experiments with alternative processing methods and is interested in framing performativity as a photographic device. She sees her large scale colour works, whether type C or Duratran, as endurance performance documents. The abstract planes of overlaid coloured shapes are built up through a combination of analogue projection through photographic negatives and the positive impressions of objects produced through the photogram technique. Working intuitively in the dark room, Chappell implicates her body (and its control over her materials) as a photographic tool. This work, from the series Light shadow, is typical of her process. Shaped into and around a corner it presents the boundlessness of light and colour. The artist noted recently that her working methodology informs a palette of actions she calls Darkroom Haptic. These she applies to the light sensitive substrates and the final artwork is mapped out and memorised by actions, times, filtration, light and objects.

Chappell completed her Masters of Fine Art (by Research) at Victorian College of the Arts in 2012. Her work is included in Geoffrey Batchen’s 2016 global exhibition Emanations at Govett Brewster, New Plymouth, New Zealand and in a number of Australian exhibitions dealing with similar (alchemical and analogue) aspects of contemporary photographic practice. She also works with tintypes and daguerreotypes.