Since Fox-Talbot (1839) artists have sought to paint with light. As photography developed, experiments with new methods abounded exploding the potential of the medium. The cyanotype was first used around 1840 (Anna Adkins). Know as “photograms” they were one-of-a-kind photographic prints made by laying objects directly on light-sensitive paper and then exposing to the sun. Although every school-aged child can delight in the magic of the medium, the art of the photogram remains essentially unexplored. Over the years only a handful of practitioners dabbled with the medium, notably Man Ray, Maholy-Nagy and more recently Theodore Roszak.

My work re-invents the art of botanical pressings made from a variety of naturally-occurring objects such as ferns, leaves, wildflowers, fruit, insects, shells, seaweed, and grasses. These Sunprints invoke the ephemeral, delicacies of the natural world but in a more mystical idiom , one more expressive of the “anima” of all living things frozen in time as was the desire of the pioneers 150 years ago who wished simply to “draw with light”.

Samples herewith are original or scanned prints. My original one-of-a-kind prints are 4”x4”, 8”x11” and 24” x 36”. Since the subtleties of Sunprints are quite difficult to capture in a slide, scans are available.