Gloaming
16.01-29.01
Opening Thurs 16.01 (6-9pm)
Open Day / Meet the Artist Sat 18 Jan (10-6pm / Talk 3-4pm)
Closing Wed 29.01
Viewing by appointment at other times please email rsvp@periscope.uk
I walk out in the clean cold night to be cut by blue. Between twilight and pitch black, sights flee, and I reach to touch. It is midwinter, and the deep and dank have grown exquisite skins. Across the field, shells of ice form over the last months of rot. Breaking beneath my feet, I sink to the soft beneath.
In this temperate zone ice doesn’t last. It flowers at night, is held by the cold a day or two, and released again to wet. Last year’s vegetation collapses as fibres turn to gunk. Waterlogged, rain sits on soil. Unhurried, moisture in the studio gathers and blooms. Constellations of mould grow across things I have left. Weeks leak through one another in piles.
From the series studio blooms, 2023-5
Glass, gelatin and fruit
20 x 25cm
This winter work gives visibility to the changing states of ice and gelatine, inviting them to narrate imminent topographical change. Thinking of print as a moment of contact between materials, Dessain explores what happens when the ground is the plate. Taking casts directly from a frozen pool in flooded pasture, the by-products of industrial farming collide with the substances of early photography. Cow bone derived gelatine, plant sap, bleach, agricultural effluence and light sensitive compounds converge as they meet the ground. As liquid and solid touch they exchange temperature, substance and form. Crystalline images are moulded from the icy surface, as it, in turn, is simultaneously etched by the warm fluids.
From the series flowers, and glistens, as crystals, 2023-5
Glass, gelatin, cyanotype and washing soda, gelatin
20 x 25cm
From the series flowers, and glistens, as crystals, 2023-5
Glass, gelatin, cyanotype and washing soda, gelatin
20 x 25cm
Nothing is stable. Outside is melting. Inside the chemicals age and the gelatine absorbs damp from the air. The close at hand contaminates the ideal. Last autumn's windfalls leak onto fresh prints. Porous bodies, the pieces respond to their changing environment. Processes of osmosis and spillage, decay and desiccation move matter. Now, in the gallery, they shift with Dalston’s humidities.
Seeing the lively negotiations of materials and environment usually tidied away, meanings slip between the works and the frozen fields: pools leach, flesh tears and formlessness threatens. The solid seems less certain: we too are moving through the gloaming.
From the series studio blooms, 2023-5
Glass, gelatin and paper
25 x 40cm
Constanza Dessain is a Scottish artist who makes imprints in the landscape to think about ecological entanglement. Works improvised in all seasons follow the flux of place.
Website: www.constanzadessain.com
Social Media: @constanzadessain
