Reliefs 1-6 (from Pietra Paesina)

• Photographer
  Julie Derbyshire

6 Giclée prints (10cm x 10cm), individually folded, on Hahnemühle German Etching, mounted in black floating frames (20cm x 20cm). Engaging with objects and materialities and situated at the interstices of photography and sculpture, Julie’s work addresses and questions human existence, exploring notions of fragility, transience, imperfection and destruction. Process and ‘making’ are embedded in her practice and she seeks to re-contextualise photographic language speculating upon ways in which it may encourage an engagement with the physical experience of artworks and attend to the process of making and material properties of photographs in time and space. This series is inspired by a rare and singular limestone, also known as ruin marble, that came into being millions of years ago, its layered strata bearing traces of its own formation. A process of deconstruction and subsequent re-imagining serves to reflect upon our individual, transient place in earth’s history whilst confronting the impact of humankind. The repeated folds allude not only to change and disruption but also to the geographical relief, adding volume and three dimensionality to the traditional flat photographic surface. The photographic image operates as fragment and illusion, asserting its presence not only as a reminder of time past, of what has been lost, but also as a portal into an imperfect, perhaps ruinous, future.