Going in circle or spiralling somewhere?

Returning to explore the Thames as I try to make new work feels less like revisiting familiar places, is it me going around in circles or spiraling upwards, or none?

This journey began with photography, where I was making photos of the water splashing onto the watermna stairs on the river looking at the textures and traces captured by long exposure on my camera.

The changing tides captivated my attention. These are similar to my moods as I struggle to anxiety and depression.

My practice recently moved into etching and drawing. Making charcoal marks is therapeutical and liberating. I don't worry much about what the marks are at the moment. I enjoy the process, I play.

The river Thames remained a consistent presence in my thinking, a source from which I draw inspiration for the visual language. Thinking of the river I made the series of chemigrams that ended up into a book where thinking of memory and place I used archival photos made by my grandfather to add another dimension of the book.

This moved into trying to think of different process and I wanted to learn screen printing and etching.

I tried screen printing but the way I experimented with it seemed that etching was as a better approach. I leave the gate open to making screen prints in the future.

I belive that every event is with a reason and that the world is somehow functioning similar to a clockwork. my sister Denisa made me a present a drawing set at Christmas. Few weeks later I started to play and made marks on paper. Now those drawings are the source for the etchings I make. Etching is similar process with darkroom printing. When I etch I use acid to make marks on a zinc plate, in the darkroom I use light to make marks on the silver halides on the photosensitive paper. Both practices are using different layers of work. Etching uses hard ground, soft ground, soap ground, sugar lift, aquatint, spit bite, inking the plate and running it trough the press to mirror imprint its marks on paper. Darkroom printing is protecting the negative image on to the photosentive paper. I use dodging and burning, grading filters to aid contrast. I make test prints to assess the right exposure time. I than process the paper into developer solution, stop bath and fixer and than I wash and dry the print. Both process are very addictive and I could spend long hours working without much need of anything else. The result are always fascinating and rewarding. To me the magic of seeing a print appear unde red light while I submerge the paper into developer is similar to lifting the paper of the zink plate after I run it trough the press. Both process have what Walter Benjamin's called "aura".

Similar to the flow of the river Thames or any river my practice is flowing and is changing in different shapes mirroring, similarly of the etched plate my way of learning. I still dont know where I am in the journey but I know that I feel free to make work without being to first conceptulise "why".

3rd May edit

I had some more thought of my work and why I am going back into the obsession with the river Thames.

First I corrected the title of this blog from Going in circle or spiralling upward ? To Going in circle or spiralling somewhere?

Upwards - I used the term to describe that going back to work on the river Thames is positive direction in my practice. But in fact, after developing some of the films I made, I realise that I struggle so much to make new work.

In the past

I photographed the water splashing the stairs

I photographed the stairs as architectural built up. I overlaid multiple images to create this collage of offset images, creating dreamlike feal.

I made photographs using Polaroid camera, left the Polaroids to soak in the water collected from the Thames unti the dye lost tge shape of any photography element

Scanned this Polaroids and overlayed over the photograph off set stairs

Now I found my self photographic large stones that emerged as the tide is going down. Are the images strong enough? I sold my digital back that I used to make this work…Now I use 5x4 black and white film. ( sounds like I made my life more difficult…I’m struggling to keep going as it seams that the world arround me is resistant to my wishes of making work. The reason I sold my digital back is that I haven’t used it for few months and I started to become obsessed with making etchings. The value of these cameras drops quickly and in panic I made the decision to sell it and I keep telling myself that I don’t need it, but it would have been easier ti shoot digitally. Working with film is slow, but the rewards are worth I think. I wrote a different blog that before I start processing I loom at the process as being tedious, but at the end when I look at the film results I feel joy, excitement and contempt. I don’t feel the same when I use a digital camera.

How do I move from using my feelings to feed directly the way I read the work I make, let’s say a photograph, or a chemigram or the etchings. I’m rumbling….