Painted Ladies

Black & White C Type photographic prints hand painted with transparent oil paints and mounted in a hand made  box frame by the artist.

Hand colouring or painting of monochrome photography became popular in the late 19th century; and continued as a recognised photographer’s skill right up until the 1940’s. However with the advent of colour photographic film, the desire and need to colour hand-tint black and white photographs to look and feel realistic understandably fell away.

Conversely this opened up a wonderful aesthetic opportunity to be more exploratory and creative using paint combined with the photographic image. Coupled with the fact that each hand painted image created is unique and non-replicable (unlike the pure photographic image which can readily be duplicated) elevates both the artist’s re-engagement with their own work and re-imagines the viewers experience of it.