Technical Notes

palladium print - abstract image by Alice Garik

My work is a combination of experimental photographic techniques and hand-applied color.  To make the photographic base image, I collage negatives of photographed tattoos with negatives of flora and fauna.  For the tattoos, I photograph people’s tattoos with a 4X5″ camera and enlarge the negatives onto larger film in the darkroom.  The negatives I use for my imagery of flora and fauna are camera-free.  In the darkroom, I project a small object — a flower or a piece of seaweed, for example — onto negative film with my enlarger.  I try to allow the shapes to take form in an organic process of discovery, working with various degrees of focus in the final image.

I then combine multiple negatives of tattoos with negatives of flora and fauna.  Next, I paint palladium emulsion on handmade translucent Japanese gampi paper.  Once the emulsion has dried, I place the negatives on it and top with glass and expose the image outdoors in the sun.  It can take mere minutes in the summer or even hours in the winter for the image to form.

Depending on my ideas for each work, I may expose the work again with other negatives or paint it with water colors.  Each unique work is process driven.  At each stage I decide how the work is communicating.

Art Exhibit in Taos, NM

The shadow of a bird in flight brings life to her hands inscribed with the tattoo of a bird.

On exhibit at ChincharMaloney in Taos, NM https://chincharmaloney.com/shop-art/alice-garik

are fifteen of my unique palladium prints. That the black and white palladium prints are in Taos is significant because in Zuni culture the use of black and white in their pottery represents the upper world. The featured print here of her hands crossed in a flight movement with her bird tattoo relates to the world of spirit.

My palladium prints are handmade using the traditional analogue darkroom techniques of making negatives, either camera-less or photographs with a 4X5 large format camera. Brushing palladium on handmade Japanese gampi, I layer my negatives and expose them using the sun. The resulting montage is spontaneous and suggests movement with the images embedded in a paper with the tactility of silk.