Please join us for the opening of the exhibition LOOKING AT WHAT CAN’T BE SEEN by British artist and photographer Simon Roberts on Friday, June 7, from 6 to 9 pm. The artist will be present. We look forward to seeing you!
The exhibition brings together works from the two series “The Celestials” and “Cloud Negatives”.
During the global pandemic and ensuing lockdowns, satellite images released by NASA and the European Space Agency showed a dramatic drop in nitrogen dioxide emissions; the skies were clearer and bluer, and the earth was breathing again. The cyanotypes in the series “The Celestials” were created during that time, using negatives of pictures taken from plane windows during work expeditions over the preceding years. The Prussian blue of the cyanotypes, a colour that is not found in nature, is brought about by a chemical reaction that produces ferric ferrocyanide. They evoke an otherworldly, dreamlike intensity that is augmented in several cases by layering multiple negatives – creating “fictional” images and allowing us to “look at what can’t be seen.” The same is true for the large-format black and white prints in the “Cloud Negatives” series, which were made using the same negatives. Both series work with a degree of abstraction that speaks of the essence of what many people experience in our time of climate emergency: our altered states and perspectives, collective uncertainty and deepening awareness of the interconnectedness between us and the natural world.