Illuminate: Artist Statement for Language In-Form Retrospective Exhibition
by Wanrudee Buranakorn

Reproducing new prints for this exhibition reminds me of how much I love processes.  In each step, from wet-mount scanning to convert black-and-white film to digital files to searching for and testing alternative inkjet printing materials, it seems like I choose the most challenging method in order to prolong the pleasure of doing the process.  The creation of the images themselves also involves many courses of action. 

Lady Jane Grey’s Lamentation started with watching a late night movie, “Lady Jane,” on the History channel.  The tragic life and death of Lady Jane Grey, the nine-day queen of England, in 1553, touched me so deeply that I had to do something about it.  So I took pictures—my photographic reflection of her story.  The shooting session was only a couple hours, but I extended the pleasure by making an artist book.  Lady Jane Grey’s lamentation is a handmade book with seven photographs and letterpress printed text, created in a limited edition.  The photographs were printed by hand-coating silver emulsion (Liquid Light) onto Rives Lightweight paper and then exposing and developing the prints with photographic chemicals.  I vividly remember taping 4 borders for each image, of seven images in a book, of 40 copies, and applying 2 coats for each image.  After printing 280 images, I had to print the text onto the other sides of the photographs while the paper was still damp.  The text of “Lady Jane Grey’s Lamentation,” by an anonymous writer in the sixteenth century, is letterpress printed using handset movable lead types.  I remember the very fine line between the paper being too wet or too dry.  When the paper was too wet, the text would puncture through the paper onto the photographs.  When the paper was too dry, the ink would not adhere to the paper.  This is why the 40 copies became an edition of 29.

I take pleasure in the challenge of doing things for the first time.  I wanted to present the figure in
Untitled Figure Study in life-size, gelatin silver prints.  I learned to develop the print in troughs made out of large PVC pipe cut in half instead of trays.  The developing process involved rotating the print with four to five inches of paper in the chemicals at a time.  It seems more satisfying than the conventional method, using trays that are big enough to cover 40 by 40 inches paper.  Moving the prints in troughs suitably corresponded with the images on the prints, a figure in movement.

I used an unconventional method of photographing the Images in the Mind series to expand the exploration of capturing figure in movement without a frame break.  The images were photographed by rewinding film through a camera at a long exposure time.  The entire roll of film is, then, one continuous image.  The presented images are selected portions of the rolls.  The prints are mounted on both ends with small pipes in a scroll form.  The exhibited pieces, when hung on the wall, appear to be like unrolled scrolls to present an imaginary world of Images in the Mind.

The Body of Words series is a byproduct of my attempt to create a body of work in response to The Yellow Wallpaper that ended up as the Veil series.  I painted my bedroom in a pattern I imagined the main character in the story might see.  I lay in the room staring at the paints and started to see figures—like cloud formations.  I painted pieces of paper attempting to mimic the patterns that the main character might see again—this time more expressive.  To create a photographic narrative of the story written in first person, I projected the text in cursive handwriting and the painted patterns onto the model.  As painting is incorporated in many aspects of this series, I will print the images on canvas for this exhibition.    

I finally arrived at the Veil series by stepping back and realizing that my fascination with the story of The Yellow Wallpaper is on the entrapment of the main character.  Images in this series are of a figure trapped behind a thin wall of cloth.  I searched and reshot over and over again to find the right cloth and the right way of positioning the models behind the cloth.  The images are presented in mural size, originally as gelatin silver prints.  In the first exhibition of this body of work, the prints were hung on white gallery walls in thin white frames.  I did not use glass on the frame because I wanted to eliminate a potential barrier between the viewers and the figure.  I wanted the figure to appear to be pushing out from the walls, towards the viewers.  In this exhibition, Veil will be printed on semi-translucent cloth to allow the images to be seen from both sides.  The viewers will also be seen behind the images on the thin cloth. 

I continue to include the viewers in the work in In Search of Identity.  The finished piece is an installation of a photographic image printed on mirror tiles using silver emulsion.  The reflective quality of the image on the mirror surface allows viewers, standing in front of the work, to see their own reflections as they see the image, and thus become part of the image.  The viewers participate in the investigation of self-identity.  The original piece was printed by hand-coating silver emulsion (Liquid light) on mirror, which is the most challenging surface to print hand-coated silver emulsion on.

Photography provides me a means of expression—to convey feelings and to unburden secrets.  For each of my work, the materials have to be right to suitably portray the concepts.  Materials and methods are my language—my words.  All the work in this past year allows me to relive these works again.  And, it is partly true that I do not want this to end.