Alchemy
2025
Alchemy returns to the fundamentals of photography, approaching the medium not as a neutral tool but as a site of material transformation. Digitally captured images are translated into hand-coated salt prints, a process that was refined in the nineteenth century by Henry Fox Talbot. This hybrid method connects photography’s technological present to its chemical origins, as light, salt and silver slowly — and at times unpredictably — inscribe the image onto paper.
At the core of the series is a suite of laboratory glassware — flasks, pipettes and distillation apparatus — that was originally handmade by Brisbane glass artist Jarred Wright. All appear to be broken. Their fractures are deliberate: understated signs of rupture. Read in this light, Alchemy moves beyond a meditation on art and science to express environmental unease. The broken instruments imply a damaged relationship between human inquiry and the material world — a break with the analogue, with matter itself. Surrounding these forms, dark and sombre images of fading flowers and animal remains intensify the sense of ecological fragility and loss.
In this series transformation is both material and symbolic. The series reflects on photography’s chemical foundations while pointing to a broader environmental crisis — a world where the instruments of knowledge lie fractured, and beauty endures alongside evidence of damage.
At the core of the series is a suite of laboratory glassware — flasks, pipettes and distillation apparatus — that was originally handmade by Brisbane glass artist Jarred Wright. All appear to be broken. Their fractures are deliberate: understated signs of rupture. Read in this light, Alchemy moves beyond a meditation on art and science to express environmental unease. The broken instruments imply a damaged relationship between human inquiry and the material world — a break with the analogue, with matter itself. Surrounding these forms, dark and sombre images of fading flowers and animal remains intensify the sense of ecological fragility and loss.
In this series transformation is both material and symbolic. The series reflects on photography’s chemical foundations while pointing to a broader environmental crisis — a world where the instruments of knowledge lie fractured, and beauty endures alongside evidence of damage.