Silvana Robinson
Artist's Biography
I have been a full time mum for most of my life apart from the occasional “non creative” employment as a means of making a living. I have always had drawing and painting as my hobbies so when I was able to return to college as a “mature “ student I chose to study Fine Art and most recently Photography and Digital Imaging.
During my time at college, where I studied for a BTEC ND in Photography, I did a lot of work with liquid emulsion for my final show. I thought it would be good to incorporate some of my colour images into the project. I decided to try Polaroid lifts and transfers as I thought this would give me the “olde worlde” ethereal look that I had with the liquid light. I used a Vivitar slide scanner to scan my colour slides in to produce the Polaroid lifts and transfers. I experimented with a Polaroid lift on canvas and fine-art paper but preferred the look of the watercolour paper to the “shiny” surface of the canvas. I found this very exciting as the image came out quite different every time.
I am finding that with this type of medium photography and art can be combined to produce unique images either by the manipulation of the emulsion while wet or by working into the image afterwards with coloured pencils. I then mounted my images onto ivory card for a warm feel and complemented this by framing them with a wooden frame stained with an antique finish.
My Final Major Project was to document Venice, as I am interested in documenting vanishing landscapes and creating photographs that connect the viewer to a sense of place. I have long been fascinated by this city as it seems quite timeless and has visual references to the past. Even though it is now quite commercial in places there are lots of walks and views around the back streets of the city. Beautiful views can be found from ancient churches to crumbling walls with lovely terracotta and yellows amongst the brickwork. I was prepared to get up early to catch the early morning sun and to escape the flood of tourists but found that I could photograph all day, as there is so much more to Venice than just the usual tourist spots. I used a 35mm Nikon camera and two lenses, a 28-125mm zoom lens, ideal for wide-angle landscapes, and a 100 to 300mm zoom lens.
On my return after taking the photographs I concentrated on using liquid light to make my final images and decided on Polaroid image transfer and lifts to show my colour slides. I thought this would complement the Liquid Light as they are both an alternative way of image making and don’t always give the same image that a normal photograph would. I felt Venice needed to be shown like this as it is a city unlike any other, steeped in History, surrounded by water, and empty of any traffic noise other than boats.
I found this very exciting as the image came out quite different every time.
Although the Polaroid images are unique in their own way they do not convey the actual colours on the transparencies, which is a shame, but they do now tend to have an old verdigris finish to them like an old wall frieze or mural that is crumbling away. I think this succeeds in conveying the timelessness of Venice and the way it has been unchanged for so long I also intend to continue work with the Polaroid lifts and transfers with different subjects.
I am now taking photographs of different places, animals and flowers so that I can continue to explore this fascinating medium.
My drawing and painting work incorporates my photography so that I work from a photograph to produce pastel drawings; my current project being equine.
Take a look at...
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About my art