Poignant Pics no. 58: On Sarah Darke's “Pansies”
Welcome to no. 58 in our series Poignant Pics where our editor, Diana Nicholette Jeon, writes about Sarah Darke’s image, “Pansies”
“The photograph is literally an emanation of the referent. From a real body, which was there, proceed radiations which ultimately touch me, who am here; the duration of the transmission is insignificant; the photograph of the missing being, as Sontag says, will touch me like the delayed rays of a star.”
–Roland Barthes From the book: "Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography"
Engaging “Darke”ness
Usually, I write the majority of the text for the Poignant Pics features. This time, however, I am going to treat this as if it was a “Poignant Portfolio” and let the artist speak for herself here. It’s a combination of the fact that I do not know this process personally and the fact that the image is so deeply personal to the artist. I often do not see eye to eye with Barthes, but in this case, describing the lumen print work of Sarah Darke, Barthes’ quote felt apropos.
I’ve never made a lumen print, but it’s on my (very long!) bucket list of things I want to try, photographically speaking. Sarah Darke’s Pansies is one of the most beautiful I have seen. It went by my timeline on Twitter because we follow each other though we don’t know each other. As soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to show it here. I didn’t know at the time it had a deeper meaning, I thought it was experimentation with the process. A successful one.
How wrong I was. Not about the success, more that I was wrong about it conceptually. I’m glad I was. I learned something about the artist, and I learned that work that may look like one thing can be something else entirely. For a picky ex-college prof like me, that was eye-opening.
‘Pansies’ shown here is a digital image of an unfixed Lumen print made on Fuji colour paper.
Sarah told me, ‘Pansies’ shown here is a digital image of an unfixed Lumen print made on Fuji colour paper. Then she went on to state:
“Over the years the actual creative process itself has become an incredible therapeutic tool, my way of dealing with chronic pain, the challenge of a small accessible landscape and emotional stress. The Lumen print ‘Pansies’ was made in Summer 2019 as part of a series ‘In Memoriam’ which began in February as a direct response to dealing with the death of my ex-husband through making work with his funeral flowers. It also coincided with my first experiments of long Winter exposures with added ingredients such as lemon juice and salt to enhance chemical staining and add texture.
“Spring turned to Summer, Tulips gave way to the summer blooms. I was instinctively drawn to the joyful Pansies popping up all over my garden, and decided to experiment with Fuji colour paper to try capture some of their colours, and so began the final phase of the ’In Memoriam’ series. During this time I was wholly absorbed in the creative process and my ‘need’ to just make work. Focusing purely on the beauty and fragility of nature also helps me to feel part of a wider interconnected whole. Only on later reflection did I realize how apt ‘Pansies’ were, symbolizing the act of ‘pondering’ and remembrance.
“The garden blossomed, as did my mood and work. The Lumen process transformed the original purple Pansies into bright red and blues against the warm velvety hues of the background with melted salt jewels. Just as the process itself transforms the subjects I see this image and series as representing coming to terms more with my grief, finding my feet again after 23 years in a difficult relationship, embracing new life and opportunities. This is why I find the act of being creative so therapeutic and also love the Lumen process, which is so full of infinite variables, a single change, such as temperature, a different plant, or condition of paper, gives rise to a myriad of different results opening up a world of possibilities, which I see as a metaphor for my own situation and growth.”
Sarah Darke, your work is intriguing, and uniquely you. I am so glad I got to see it. I am even more glad that I got to show it here. Thank you for making such conceptually interesting work in a genre that is usually only about the process. I cannot wait to see what you do next. Bravo, Sarah!
PS. I have kept to a weekly schedule for greater than a year, and yet, this time my personal life got in the way. This should have run in January. I apologize to Sarah for the long wait. I’m back and trying desperately to forge ahead getting there features out there again.
Artist Bio
Sarah Darke is a Photographic artist based in Somerset, England. She retrained in Photography after her career in Psychiatric nursing was cut short due to ill health. She went on to gain an Associateship of the Royal Photographic Society and a Masters degree in Photography at Plymouth University.
Responding to the challenge of a small accessible landscape became the catalyst to developing an experimental approach to her work, often using Pinhole and ‘Holga’ cameras and most recently exploring Lumen printing and other cameraless processes. Sarah has only just begun exhibiting her work again, both locally and internationally, most recently at the Musee D’Art in Vienna and M.A.D.S Gallery in Milan.
Author Bio
Diana Nicholette Jeon is an award-winning artist based in Honolulu, HI, who works primarily with lens-based media. Her work has been seen both internationally and nationally in solo and group exhibitions. Jeon holds an MFA from UMBC.