Ligorano Reese
Untitled, 2024
Cyanotpye on rice paper
Set of 12 prints, Edition of 2 + 1AP
Edition of 2 (Set of twelve = $20,000)
1 of 1 available Individually (see drop down menu for pricing)
*Please note: Works will remain on display for the duration of the exhibition and will be ready for pick up or to ship after June 8th.
The works in this exhibit build on recurrent themes and processes about the passage of time, duration and decay in our ongoing art practice. The work in progress is a departure and a continuation building on our concerns of permanence and impermanence. The first major print work since The Corona Palimpsest (1994-96) these prints are an ongoing series of cyanotype prints of endangered keystone species selected from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List.
Keystone species are land animals, insects, sea life, plants and bacteria having a great impact on their habitat and ecological community, made even greater by the consequences of their disappearance and the subsequent effect on the ecosystem. Untitled (edition of 2 + 1 AP) builds on the pioneering work of British botanist Anna Atkins and her cyanotype collections of algae and seaweed from the 1800’s. In our prints we’ve reworked from various sources primarily 19th century naturalist illustrations from the Smithsonian’s Biodiversity Heritage Libraryand other collections. We chose these sources as emblematic of the way Europeans mapped the living world through taxonomy, using biologist Carl Linnaeus’ nomenclature.
These camera-less images are printed directly on Sekishu Japanese paper whose translucent materiality embodies fragility and ephemerality. We prepare the sheets by hand painting them with a Japanese brush, coating their surfaces with a light sensitive emulsion. Like blueprints the cyanotypes will fade and, like most photographic prints, disappear over time in direct light. But they also offer a glimmer of redemption, when stored in a dark environment, the faded prints can return to their original state.