Susan Derges
Encyclopedia
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
artist, specialising in camera-less photographic processes
Photogram
A photogram is a photographic image made without a camera by placing objects directly onto the surface of a photo-sensitive material such as photographic paper and then exposing it to light. The result is a negative shadow image varying in tone, depending on the transparency of the objects used...
, most often working with natural landscapes. She has exhibited extensively in Europe, America and Japan and has works in many museum collections including the Metropolitan Museum, New York and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
Biography
Derges was born in London in 1955. She studied painting at the Chelsea College of Art and DesignChelsea College of Art and Design
Chelsea College of Art and Design, the erstwhile Chelsea School of Art, is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London, and is a leading British art and design institution with an international reputation...
from 1973-1976 and at the Slade School of Art from 1977-1979. She then turned to photography, exploring in particular early photographic techniques of cameraless photography - exposing images directly onto photographic paper - techniques she has continued to refine and develop to this day. From 1981 to 1985 she lived and worked in Japan, receiving a Rotary Foundation Award (1981), JVC Award (1984) and carrying out postgraduate research at Tsukuba University. From 1986 to 1991 Derges lived in London, moving to Dartmoor
Dartmoor
Dartmoor is an area of moorland in south Devon, England. Protected by National Park status, it covers .The granite upland dates from the Carboniferous period of geological history. The moorland is capped with many exposed granite hilltops known as tors, providing habitats for Dartmoor wildlife. The...
, Devon in 1992. In 1993 she received a South West Arts Award and was appointed Lecturer in Media Arts at the University of Plymouth
University of Plymouth
Plymouth University is the largest university in the South West of England, with over 30,000 students and is 9th largest in the United Kingdom by total number of students . It has almost 3,000 staff...
, Exeter. From 1997 to 1999 she was an external examiner for the BA in Fine Art: Photography at Middlesex University
Middlesex University
Middlesex University is a university in north London, England. It is located in the historic county boundaries of Middlesex from which it takes its name. It is one of the post-1992 universities and is a member of Million+ working group...
.
Work
Having trained in painting Susan Derges expressed an early interest in abstractionAbstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
because "it offered the promise of being able to speak of the invisible rather than to record the visible". She turned to cameraless photography
Photogram
A photogram is a photographic image made without a camera by placing objects directly onto the surface of a photo-sensitive material such as photographic paper and then exposing it to light. The result is a negative shadow image varying in tone, depending on the transparency of the objects used...
after experiencing frustration at the way "the camera always separates the subject from the viewer". Much of her subsequent work has dealt with this relationship - of separation and connectedness with the natural world. Her images are often beautiful, conjuring metaphysical
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
and metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
ical layers of meaning. Her methods have been consistently experimental, a constant search for new cameraless methods of recording imagery, including the photogram
Photogram
A photogram is a photographic image made without a camera by placing objects directly onto the surface of a photo-sensitive material such as photographic paper and then exposing it to light. The result is a negative shadow image varying in tone, depending on the transparency of the objects used...
, while directly connecting with the world she observes.
Derges first experimented with cameraless photography
Photogram
A photogram is a photographic image made without a camera by placing objects directly onto the surface of a photo-sensitive material such as photographic paper and then exposing it to light. The result is a negative shadow image varying in tone, depending on the transparency of the objects used...
while living in Japan. Her 1985 work Chladni Figures was produced by sprinkling carborundum powder directly onto photographic emulsion where it was exposed to sound waves
Sound
Sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.-Propagation of...
at different frequencies (see Ernst Chladni
Ernst Chladni
Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni was a German physicist and musician. His important works include research on vibrating plates and the calculation of the speed of sound for different gases. For this some call him the "Father of Acoustics"...
), creating ghostly black and white images of natural order and chaos. For her 1991 series The Observer and the Observed Derges explored the interdependence of viewer
Observation
Observation is either an activity of a living being, such as a human, consisting of receiving knowledge of the outside world through the senses, or the recording of data using scientific instruments. The term may also refer to any data collected during this activity...
and object
Objectivity (philosophy)
Objectivity is a central philosophical concept which has been variously defined by sources. A proposition is generally considered to be objectively true when its truth conditions are met and are "mind-independent"—that is, not met by the judgment of a conscious entity or subject.- Objectivism...
- creating images appearing as droplets of water containing faces, while simultaneously showing her own face with small droplets suspended in her view. On March 24, 2011, Swann Galleries
Swann Galleries
Swann Galleries is a New York auction house founded in 1941. It is a specialist auctioneer of antique and rare works on paper, and it is considered the oldest continually operating New York specialist auction house....
auctioned Derges's The Observer and the Observed #6, silver print, 1992 for $28,800—more than any previous work by the artist at auction. For the 1997 River Taw series she worked at night, placing photographic paper
Photographic paper
Photographic paper is paper coated with light-sensitive chemicals, used for making photographic prints.Photographic paper is exposed to light in a controlled manner, either by placing a negative in contact with the paper directly to produce a contact print, by using an enlarger in order to create a...
on the river bed and allowing the images to be exposed through ambient light, aided by the use of a flash gun. Her technique involved a very direct and unmediated physical relationship with the landscape, while her Under The Moon series involved working with photographs of the moon and combining these with water and branch patterns exposed to sound vibrations in the darkroom. Her images, though based upon the capturing of external natural realities, take on a metaphorical dimension that echo the inner life of the unconscious
Unconscious mind
The unconscious mind is a term coined by the 18th century German romantic philosopher Friedrich Schelling and later introduced into English by the poet and essayist Samuel Taylor Coleridge...
and imaginative
Imagination
Imagination, also called the faculty of imagining, is the ability of forming mental images, sensations and concepts, in a moment when they are not perceived through sight, hearing or other senses...
.
Major publications of her work include Woman Thinking River, published in 1998, Liquid Form with an essay by Professor Martin kemp, published 1n 1999 and Kingswood published in 2002 by photoworks.
Susan Derges exhibits and is represented by Purdy Hicks Gallery (London), Ingleby Gallery (Scotland), Fraenkel Gallery (San Francisco, CA, USA), Paul Kasmin Gallery (New York, NY, USA) and Galerie Nichido (Tokyo, Japan)