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Jan McMillan
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| I trained in painting
at the Slade School of Fine Art, then, whilst living in the Middle East
I became influenced by the colour and texture of ethnic textiles. This
led to me learning the technology of wool and the use of natural dyes. A further degree in photography gave me a vehicle for experimenting with ways of representing environmental and social states and changes. My interest in local dye plants had led to a concern with envionmental issues and the effect of human actiities on the natural scene. My professional development moved naturally away from working with wool to using felt-making skills to make paper. My knowledge of natural dyes and chemicals involved in mordanting enabled me to create coloured photographic emulsions. Together with new technology, I am working to co-ordinate these apparently disparate disciplines, experimenting with representations of the world which integrates photography, hand made paper and organic materials. Photographs of a locality or a specific plant are integrated with paper bearing the fibres and seeds of the same locality or plant. In this way, I express a personal approach to conservation & social issues. Photographs of authors who share my concerns are printed on paper in which I have integrated pages from their books. This way I portray the writer, express my reaction to their words and show their influence upon me. The pristine surface of a modern photograph gives the illusion of an intact comfortable world which is in fact full of discontinuities and abrasions. By using alternative photographic emulsion, which is subject to chance, and presenting images on hand made paper, the viewer confronts the work in a different way. It has a different physical presence and its fragility becomes a metaphor for human and environmental frailty - thus shaking up the perception of the photograph as an objective witness. Contact: Postlip Hall Winchcombe Glos. GL54 5AQ |