April 2024 Newsletter

Image: Beneath The Surface, Achmore, Cyanotype toned with heather, 2024. 
Produced as part of my residency at Island Darkroom, Isle of Lewis, 2024.

Residency

I am pleased to be the Artist In Residence at Photo Canopy, Burton on Trent this spring. I will be working with students to create new artworks utilising plant based developers and botanical cyanotype toners.

“Photo -Canopy is an in house art programme at Burton & South Derbyshire College designed to bring student’s and professional artists together to create contemporary work in response to The National Forest. By working with established artists and staff at BSDC student’s gain a unique insight into working and exhibiting as professional photographers and artists whilst exploring their local area, gaining awareness of the National Forests history and evolution and also expanding the creative scene in Burton and the surrounding areas.”

I will also be leading a workshop as part of my residency on 11 May 2024.

Exhibitions
Future Now, Quad Gallery, Derby, UK
16 March 2024 to 30 June 2024

I am showing my Acquaintance series at Future Now, Quad Gallery

Featured Artists: Deacon Lui, Kota Ishida, Melanie King and Sergey Novikov
Curated by: Jodi Kwok (QUAD/FORMAT Assistant Curator)

‘Photography often facilitates a journey through time. At a more fundamental level, photography allows us to capture people, places and objects that might have been lost to history, giving us an unprecedented ability to reconstruct images of the past and project our memories far into the future. Photography is taking a more active role throughout history. Future Now looks to connect with the future through the imagination of photography. Future Now showcases the work of four UK–based artists: Deacon Lui, Kota Ishida, Melanie King, and Sergey Novikov. Each artist’s work responds to the theme of ‘Future Now’ by exploring the ways that the medium of photography can be used and interpreted, demonstrating this through varied approaches that include installation, 3D sculpture, archive, and alternative analogue processes.

The artists on display here explore the development of photography materials and creative possibilities, documenting a range of subject matter to explore concerns about the future. They each rediscover the ‘archive’ by adding new elements into how an image is constructed to question the accepted narrative view of history.’

Across The Landscape, The Margate School, Margate, UK.
Duo exhibition: Melanie King and Jess Holdengarde

Margate, 31-33 High St, Margate CT9 1DX, UK

Join us for the Private View on Friday 19 April, 6 to 8pm

Exhibition Open : Friday 19 to Sunday 21 April, 12 noon to 4pm

Exhibition Open by Appointment: Monday 22 to Wednesday 24 April. Email Melanie King using the contact link on her website.

Across the Landscape is a collaborative exhibition between Ramsgate based artist and TMS Fellow Melanie King and Glasgow based artist Jess Holdengarde.

The show is a collection of natural based explorations that have culminated from the two artists sharing, exploring and building upon their existing sustainable practices with one another.

Through conversation, knowledge exchange and collaborative practice, Jess and Melanie’s work has weaved together new and undeveloped plant-based recipes for analogue processing, printing and toning. Coming together, through the landscapes of Scotland, England and the Outer Hebrides, Melanie and Jess present a series of new and existing work.

Jess will exhibit some of her ongoing investigations from her current project, The Natural Process, alongside a series of ongoing investigations into analogue sound, printing, processing and moving image works.

Melanie will exhibit several artworks and projects produced in a range of landscapes, responding to the environment using sustainable photography processes. These projects include Acquaintance and Submerged Landscapes.

Jess’s project, The Natural Process, is a newly funded research and development project which explores the ethics of foraging, growing & harvesting local plant matter to brew, develop and test a collection of plant-based chemistry for analogue developers. The project has a specific focus on developing plant-based recipes from local landscapes & local plant matter available within Scotland.

Melanie’s project Acquaintance explored the creative possibilities of botanical cyanotype toning and sustainable photographic processes. This exploration considers how location-specific sustainable photographic processes can produce bodies of work that are materially connected to the landscape. Melanie’s research includes her project, Submerged Landscapes. According to the Climate Central app , developed by Climate Scientists, Thanet, UK is likely to become an island again within the next decade. Submerged Landscapes is an ongoing project where Melanie documented the affected areas before they are submerged, using the materiality of the sea within the production of the work.

The exhibition demonstrates how it is possible to produce works that are intrinsically and materially connected to the landscape and to one another’s processes. Through conversations, sustainable processes, methodologies and queer lenses of thought, Melanie and Jess give us an insight into the more-than-human experience.

“ We see this show as a series of glimmers into the intertwined, connected and sustainable methods of working as lens-based artists in an ecological crisis and we hope it encourages the ongoing  dialogue around the future of analogue practices”

This exhibition has been supported by Creative Scotland, Arts Council England, Curatorspace, Canterbury Christ Church University and Patreon subscribers.

Jess Holdengarde and Melanie King will come together to provide an exciting spring weekend workshop on natural-based developers for analogue film processing on Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 April 2024.

Workshops

Gathering Processes & Plant-based Developers - Spring Workshop with Jess Holdengarde & Melanie King
Margate, UK

Dates: 20th April and 21st April
Times: 4-7pm & 9-12pm
Workshop cost: £65

Image: Mangersta, Isle of Lewis, Silver Gelatin Photograph, Seaweed Film Developer, 2024.

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