Bianca Wallis-Salmon is a Leeds based artist whose practice is grounded within photography and writing. She uses the printmaking process of polymer photogravure, to not only develop her photographic work, but to also slow down her practice and create handcrafted images.
Bianca is a member at West Yorkshire Print Workshop. Previously, her work has been selected for Somewhere in Between Photography and Print Zine and the Derby Print Open 2021. She is currently studying MA Fine Art at Leeds Arts University, exploring other disciplines including film, performance, and sculpture.
‘The sea. Nothing else. Walls ruptured. Sea. Water tumbling. Oil. Transparency. The sea. Field of stirring liquid. Gathering of pouncing waves going to battle. Into one’s mythology, trees intrude, expand, shed shadows.
A wave, a mouth; a horse arrives, submits, drowns. Streaked and bleeding sky. What is sky? To climb mountain peaks to overlook clouds. Water on water reverberates memory’s mechanism.’
Extract from Sea and Fog
By Etel Adnan
“The sea and the sky – the source of all life. These etchings were produced using the process of polymer photogravure or solar plate – a technique that falls under the intaglio process of printmaking, which means creating an image lower than the surface level of the plate. In this case, an image is exposed onto a light sensitive polymer plate, inked, and printed. The subtle grooves in the plate hold the ink which is the essence of intaglio – the opposite of relief printing (linocut, woodcut, wood engraving).
The handcrafted nature of the process imbues a degree of individuality into each image, and the inconsistencies and idiosyncrasies become part of the work’s distinctively tactile patina – elevating the photograph into a unique artefact.”
