This Saturday I’ll be exhibiting my book Lost and Found: Hong Kong at the Australian Centre for Photography‘s Winter Book Fair in Sydney.
Four HK-based photographers and I contributed images to the book, which was published last year.
Stop by from 10am – 4pm and I’ll see you there.
Or you can order your copy of the book here.
For the past week I’ve been knocked flat by a tropical fever here in Bali.
I am recovering slowly and exploring the island by motorbike.
Posting will resume on 1st June once I return to Sydney.
Painting with Thai blood, the calligrapher writes: “Pouring the People’s blood onto the ground”
This is what’s happening on the other side of the Chao Phraya river, a muddy waterway that splits the Bangkok region into two parts: the old city of Thonburi where I work in my studio, and newer Bangkok, the brasher, brighter half of this city torn in two.
Photo and more info on the Thai protests from VOA website
Detail of negative for “Break my Boxes”, my artists proof currently available at the first 140 Hours auction here
Backstory on this image from Hanoi, Vietnam here.
To make my Blueprints I use a Hybrid Darkroom process, a combination of digital photography and the oldest of printing methods. First I shoot the images with my digital Canon 40D camera, then invert the colors in Photoshop, and print them onto acetate. This then becomes my negative, which is the actual size of the final image – it’s called a Contact Negative. Sizes I’ve printed so far range from A5 to A2 (from postcard to poster-size). Finally, I print the blueprint onto 100% cotton or mulberry paper. In the past I’ve also printed onto natural fabrics like silk, linen and cotton.
Unlike typical photos, blueprints actually penetrate the surface of the paper, they don’t just sit on top. This means they’re best seen in person; photos never quite do them justice. The blue varies depending on the paper, and effects can range from crisp to velvety edges depending on the surface I use.
The 140 Hours auction ends 8 a.m. New York City time (EST), Wednesday November 11th.
One steamy late-summer afternoon last year I walked back and forth across the Long Bien bridge in Hanoi, photographing traces of urban life on and underneath the bridge: barbed wire, paw-prints, syringes. When the French built the bridge a century ago, everyone said they were mad; there was a dragon in the Red River that would never let them complete it. But engineering – and perhaps luck – had their way. The Long Bien’s successful construction was a symbolic conquest of the Red River and Indochina by the French. This bridge has been shot, mocked, and betrayed during its 100 year lifetime, but still spans Hanoi as gracefully as ever. I created a select series of the best images from my trips across it.
My favorite photo from the series is called “Break my Boxes” and it opens for bids Today – November 5th, at Noon NYC time – for the first Twitter Art Auction, held by the New York based Galerie Saint George. This first-ever Twitter online Art auction lasts for 140 hours, or just under 6 days. The title refers to Twitter’s requirement that users write messages in just 140 characters, which makes people condense concepts into bite-size bits which are easily digestible in our contemporary ADD culture.
I shot these scattered crates just as the market closed; my perspective and printing transform them into abstract shapes. This unique Artists Proof shows the most important activity at the heart of “Socialist” Vietnam today: Commerce. Bidding on this print starts at US$95 and final estimates range from US$200 to $300. My print prices have increased steadily over the past several years. Like many of my works, and unlike those of many photographers and printmakers, it is – quite literally – unique. I printed the A4 size Artists Proof pictured above [8.5 x 11.5 inch image size], then a single ephemeral A2 size version for the recent Long Bien Festival in Hanoi. And that’s it – I will never print any more of this image.
To bid, you can just follow @140hours on Twitter – or you can contact the organizer, Gary Brant at Galerie St. George here. If you have any questions about the print or the bidding process, just contact me here.
UPDATE: I’m pleased to report that my print sold for US $350 to a collector in the U.A.E.
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Yesterday morning, our doorbell buzzed. I reluctantly stopped editing photos to open the door, and there stood a FedEx guy with a tentative smile on his face. Panting from his walk up the stairs. He held a big skinny package between in his hands. It was just the right size for what I’ve been waiting for, for weeks: my custom-ordered paper from northern Thailand.
I looked over the box.
Outside: Thai Airways and Australian quarantine stickers — check.
Inside: obsessive layers of packaging to protect this paper from delivery blokes in Lampang, Bangkok, and Alexandria (Sydney) — check.
Underneath it all: a stack of gorgeous paper — CHECK!
It had a distinctive scent to it — I could smell it as soon as I opened the box. Have you ever bought a knit silk shirt, and noticed a starchy clean smell? That’s what lightly-bleached mulberry paper smells like. When I travelled through Thailand and Laos earlier this year in search of handmade paper, I could tell we were near a papermaker’s place each time I sniffed the air and smelled fresh mulberry pulp.
There is no paper quite like that made of mulberry bark. It has a strength and suppleness that is unmatched by any other material. It can take any kind of abuse that an artist wants to dish out, especially in the high-quality thick grade like those I’ve ordered. This paper is 100% made by hand by the papermaker and his assistants (only a specially-modified Hollander beater is used to beat the pulp).He created a special blend of fibers, size and weight to my specifications, and these are BIG, thick sheets of paper - 100 x 70cm (around 3.3 x 2 feet).
The man who made this paper is, without a doubt, the best papermaker in Southeast Asia today. I feature him in my book on Southeast Asian paper. He is meticulous about everything that goes into it, from the chemical elements to what kind of teacup he uses to burnish the paper to a unique artistic finish. If you look closely at the photo above, you’ll see there are two textures in the paper. On one side you can see impressions from the papermaker’s screen. The reason the other side is smoother is because it was burnished by hand with the open side of a teacup – three times – while the paper dried.
His paper is significantly more expensive than the many Thai papers I saw during my journey, and more than the high-quality machine-made paper from famous French brands like Rives BFK. But – really – what fun is there in talking about machine-made paper? Handmade paper is more lustrous and has a story to tell. Best of all, I know that because he’s a perfectionist, this guy’s paper will last for centuries — and so will the art that I make on it.
And that’s priceless.
So many steps, so little time. Photo of Bethanie, Hong Kong, 2007
When people hear I’m an artist and travel-writer, they often ask me, “How’d you get that job?” I’m always taken aback. It’s not a job, it’s a lifelong series of projects across the world. It’s not something you can get a degree in (though plenty of programs will try to convince you otherwise): you have to read the best writers, study successful artists, then get out there, and do it. Do it well and do it in a way that no one else does. Develop a thick skin and schlep the results around to people who might be able to help you do something with it. You’ve got to be comfortable with risk, and even enjoy the rush that it brings.
During my second interview in two weeks — this one with My Several Worlds — I talk in depth about where my artwork comes from, mistakes I’ve made on the road to where I am today, and what my plans are next.
There’s no experience quite like the second when you realize the package you’ve just picked up at the post office contains a beautiful brand new book. And you’re in it.
Today I was distracted, thinking of notes to summarize for my next book as I walked to a favorite cafe, package in hand. Then I turned it over and saw the enigmatic acronym “LAFHK” on a package from ThingsAsianPress. Inside were two copies of the photo book Lost & Found: Hong Kong.
I’m one of five photographers featured in the book. Each of us trained our lenses onto that magnificent metropolis, and came up with a distinctive vision thanks to our personal preferences and our daily paths in the territory. I photographed Hong Kong’s offshore islands, beaches, and daily life in the small villages, a natural choice as I lived on a small quiet island at the time.
Janet McKelpin conceptualized and designed the book. She was born in HK and spent her childhood there. Her sophisticated design and cutting-edge neon colors really capture the essence of the city. Lost&Found is ThingsAsian’s first foray into contemporary photo books, and if this is any indication of their design and printing quality, I’ll be happy to work on another one.
It lists for just under US $20 but has the feel of a book going for twice the price. You can pre-order the book here for next year. In the meantime, you can see a few of my images for the book over at Flickr.
Wearing a Chinese qipao at the beach in Sydney for a photo shoot. Squinting rather than smug.
Jetset Citizen has just featured me as his first Global Artist on his impressive roster of Nomads & Global Citizens. He’s a Canadian living in Japan, and his site explores location independent lifestyle options that go beyond the office: cubicles are SO 20th century.
To read the interview where I talk about how travel has helped my art career, and why I’m buying a studio in Sicily, you can read the interview here.
Hand-printed cyanotype photo on Lanaquarelle paper, from Bokor Hill Station, Cambodia.
First in a limited edition of 20 prints.
My Bokor in Blue series of cyanotype prints are now available from John McDermott Gallery in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Each print in the edition is unique due to my brushed application of the chemicals, and the available sunlight and water that day.
The image above was taken during the 16 months I lived in Siem Reap, Cambodia, from 2005-6. When not printing photos, I worked as a radio DJ and organized a program to teach photography to children who’d been injured by landmines. Eventually I worked with the Angkor Photo Festival to teach digital photography to street children.
This series was my first visual work to explore the no-man’s-land of cultural fusion and friction, particularly between East and West. Bokor was built by the French for their wealthy colonists in the early 20th century, then was a popular spot for the Cambodian King and elite during the 1960′s Reyum period. It still bears the scars of the Khmer Rouge-Vietnamese conflict during the 70s, and graffiti from the trickle of travellers who’ve made their way there ever since.
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I'm an american artist with an Asian focus.
I paint sharp-witted women.
I print blue photos of disappearing places. Sometimes I work in Sydney, sometimes I work in Asia. You can keep up and connect with me on Twitter, and Facebook, and Flickr
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