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Indepth Arts News:
"Lorena Krause: This is the Shape of Clouds"
2004-02-26 until 2004-03-10
Deluxe-Arts Gallery and Creative Space
London, ,
UK United Kingdom
This is the first exhibition by Mexican photographer Lorena Krause. A well known television journalist in Latin America, Lorena moved to London 3 years ago with her family and to pursue her interest in photography. Studying under photographer Natasha Bult and Margaret Mann at the Black and White School of Photography in Kensington, Lorenaās body of work encompasses images taken whilst travelling around the world. Uniquely, however, the eye is drawn not to the monuments themselves but to the natural landscape of the sky whilst the famous buildings are reduced to simple forms.
At a time when Kodak is stopping the manufacturing of their 35mm cameras, Lorena Krause is interested in reviving the lost art of hand printing, spending hours using hard-to-find toners and paper to create the desired effect. Each print is unique. The contrast that only light can provide, allows the artistic photographer to paint her "canvas", the printing paper in the dark room. However, the use of digital technologies has its uses. Printing digitally Lorena has been able to produce very large prints (1.5m) that would be unachievable through hand printing. At this size every detail and every nuance is viewable and Lorena's pictures are spectacular and imposing.
She says, "It is impossible to get the same startling contrast between the foreground and background using digital photography. It's unfortunate but inevitable that many of the materials I use - the infra-red film, the papers and other materials - are being phased out. Yet thereās nothing to compare to the magic of a photographic image being revealed using traditional development methods. It's something my children find especially fascinating."
"In my pictures, a familiar object such as the Big Ben or the I.M. Pei pyramid at the Louvre become no more than a setting for my characters, be them Cumulus, Nimbus or Cirrus, yes, all being types of clouds."
Lorena Krause joins a long line of illustrious graduates from the Black and White School of Photography including Lucy Ferry and Kay Saatchi. The school includes in its curriculum all the professional steps to photography and fine art printing and is now starting a new course on the revival of Old Masters techniques such as Palladium printing, Gum Bichromate, etc.
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