ERIKA GENTRY

Ginestrella 2012

30x40" and 16x20" Archival Pigment Prints 

Lumen prints made onsite at Art Studio Ginestrelle outside of Assisi, Italy. The yellow Ginestrella (greenweed) flower covers Mt. Subasio, where St. Francis of Assisi lived a nomadic life, April through June. Its flower was once used for medicinal purposes in treating conditions like hypertension. Black and white silver gelatin photographic papers are used in the process. The plant cutting is placed on the paper and under glass in the sun from sunrise to sunset. In the heat of the summer, the photographic paper makes contact with the plant and produces color shifts and darkened exposures. This contact process references 19th century botanical gathering and cataloging of plants.