Insects (1992–1997)

or an embalmer’s elegies

These last metamorphoses of insects into pictograms or ideograms become metaphors or allegories. This ultimate condition was given to them by the use of gum bichromate, a photographic process where light passing through a negative fixes pigments on paper with the help of bichromates and Arabic gum.

The print size is: 56 × 76 centimetres (22 × 32 inches) and
101.6 × 64.8 centimetres (25 3/4 × 40 inches) for the diptychs.
Only one print was made of each insect.

Technical Information

Two Colour Gum Bichromate Prints

One hundred percent cotton Arches Watercolour paper was coated with an emulsion made by mixing watercolour pigments, Arabic gum and ammonium or potassium dichromate.

The paper was then exposed under indirect sunlight, then developed in clear water. The same paper was coated and developed a second time with the second colour.

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