Layers

Image used in pic: Bondi Scene by Rachel Biffin

In these dark times where the world is going through the spectrum of terror, grieving, and loss, it is difficult to write about anything light. Anything positive.

At home in Australia, as saddened as I am by the outcome of the referendum on an indigenous voice to parliament and the attitude of more than half this country’s population towards equality for our First Nation’s people, I, as a privileged white woman, safe from the horror so many are facing, am choosing to lean on my motto: When in doubt, go create. 

So, I thought this week’s article would be about my creative process.

Over the last year, I have made works from a place of trying to conjure feelings or atmospheres of comfort, delight, and of beauty, all under the idea of the soft edge.

I use sourced and self generated photographic images in creating my digital collages. Photos have a crisp, real feeling about them and are substantive enough to withstand manipulation of transparency and tone. Something I don’t find in the milky, graphic assets I’ve used in the past. 

On the computer, as I position each image layer, playing around moving them behind and infront of each other, I simultaneously work with each layer’s transparency levels. As I make a layer more transparent, the magic starts to appear; colours from the images behind start melding with the layer in front. The effect often results in colour accents and shapes forming I would have never seen.  Even if I start out with the intention of conjuring a certain feeling, or texture, often something entirely new will appear. 

It’s a delightful process but one that requires a constant letting go of the idea before it. If I like the look of a piece at the point before it’s morphed and don’t want to let it go, I’ll copy it then and there, saving it at that point, before I continue with it on its journey.

The resolution of a piece (aka, knowing it’s finished) comes when I feel it in my eyeballs, my gut, and my mind. Also, it may be that I’m tired and don’t want to risk overworking the piece and myself. In which case, I step away and come back to it the next day. When I return, I either see the finished piece, a work that needs me to keep on going, or something flat that needs to go in the scrap file. These scraps will often find a home as an image asset in a new piece down the track when the process starts all over again.

More often than not, my works have a soft and soothing quality. These I print onto commercial materials like aluminum, wood panels, or acrylic banner mesh. The aim is to create works that embody the juxtaposing concepts of the soft edge idea. (For example: a landscape of mountainous soft blankets and blankets that look like mountains printed onto wood.)

As my printing stage is still a work in process, I’ll stop there.

Till next week,

Rachel