exhibition wall panel

studies of marine algae: pressed onto paper, or captured as digital images

When seaweeds are found washed up on the shore, or seen when swimming in the sea, their beauty and variety is not usually evident. These works retain and display their unexpected colours, shapes and textures: the unseen is revealed.

The physical specimens are carefully arranged on watercolour paper, pressed and dried. The digital images are captured at high resolution by the objects' exposure to light in two types of custom-built apparatus: a lightbox for transmitted light and a darkbox for reflected light. They are presented as giclée prints on photographic paper. One image is of a cuttlebone, not an alga. Special edition prints are possible: any image or any two in any left / right arrangement. Prints can be made as single images, or pairs, at any size up to 208 x 290 mm, which will fit in a frame intended for A4 prints.

The seaweed used to make the artworks are collected from south Devon beaches where they have been washed up, having lost their attachment to their substrates, and are thus at the end of their natural life.

Jo Crook is an artist and curator based in Totnes, Devon, UK