WORKS ON PAPER

Many of these images are monoprints – tinted photographs, multi-media surfaces or cyanotypes – which have been burned into using a Sunshine Recorder.

Sunshine Recorders are used by meteorologists to measure the amount of bright sun falling on a particular part of the earth on a specific day. They use a spherical lens to focus the sun`s rays and burn an arc into calibrated cards as it tracks across the sky. The marks get more intense as the sun comes up at dawn and gradually less intense at sunset – when it`s cloudy, there`s no burn mark.

The photograph of musical staves shows this process, with the lens at the top right corner. Each of these burn prints involves chance; no print can ever be repeated exactly. Some of the prints are scanned into audio software to create random sound pieces, others as a metaphor for change and unpredictability.

Prints can be made to order, from a particular location with an arc burned on a specific date. However, there's no guarantee the sun will come out... The shape of each burn line is determined by the time of year and the position of the sun in the sky. During winter, the sun is low in the sky and produces a small curve. When it is at its highest in summer it produces a large curve. During the spring and autumn equinoxes it produces straight lines. The Gum Bichromate and Cyanotype prints EARTH DRUM and SKY DRUM were produced during the equinox.

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