Josie Purcell
Josie Purcell statement
My photographic practice is informed by the human impact on our natural resources, and the imprint we make on the Earth.
Predominately employing camera-less alternative photography processes, I create abstract images with nature to raise awareness of socio-environmental issues such as the global sand crisis, land access rights, and un/sustainable mining.
I am fascinated by the potential for abstract photography to inspire eco-conscious action and/or activism.
My processes of choice tend to be anthotype, cyanotype and unfixed lumens often mixed with digital technologies. To me, these represent the constant compromises in trying to produce photographic art more sustainably, which in turn reflects the anthropocentric dilemma in making our long-term future on Earth sustainable.
Flotsam artwork
For this show I am incorporating two photographic series.
My new 985 Blue series brings together two Victorian processes; paper flower making and cyanotypes.
These sculptural photographs breath new life into my blueprint collection, nodding to the origins of paper flowers as ceremonial offerings floated on water and the botanical beginnings of the cyanotype.
Our natural world needs us to do the right thing by it more than ever - what should we be offering to nature now?
For Flotsam, they speak of our ability to adapt, to be reborn and find new purpose.
The second, The Fallen, employs my unfixed lumen and digital technique to illuminate the experience of menopausal people.
Responding to an element of the exhibition theme that people can feel overlooked, superfluous or washed-up, these images are made with dying flowers, capturing their vitality yet reinventing it in a new way.
They speak of positive difference, acceptance of change and joy of the journey.
Both processes support my eco-conscious way of creating photo art.