General Office is delighted to welcome to the Gallery Jo Gane, with a solo show of photographic artworks. Jo recently completed a practice-based PhD exploring early photographs made by George Shaw (1818-1904) at the School of Art, Birmingham City University and the Photo History Research Centre, De Montfort University.
Her artistic practice involves making photographs with early photographic processes – using historical materials, including the daguerreotype, calotype and wet plate collodion process. In winter 2021 / 2022 Jo retraced the steps of George Shaw in Packington Park, Warwickshire. Re-photographing the trees and landscape in Packington with the same early photographic process Shaw used there, the calotype. The calotype is a positive/negative paper-based photographic process, invented in 1841 using silver nitrate brushed onto fine paper then developed in gallic acid. Her use of the calotype created an understanding of how the photographic materials respond to their handling in the landscape revealing the historical story of the place. This new body of work draws out links between landscape and the materials and processes of early photography. The prints in this show are from her calotype negatives using both traditional salt and silver light-sensitive printing techniques and the polymer photogravure process. Polymer gravure involves transferring the image onto a light sensitive relief plate that is washed out in water, then inked and put through a press on high quality Japanese Kozo paper. The colours are ground from pigment with linseed oil, chosen and mixed to preserve ephemeral colours of red, orange and purple that appear during the chemical stages of the calotype photographic process.
