For Arts Sake: 2nd August 2012

At UniSA this week, we had the pleasure of emerging photographic artist Alice Blanch join us to discuss her art practice and share her journey up to date.

Blanch is an up-and-coming, very talented young Australian photographer who works with alternative analogue photographic processes to create truly beautiful images that surpass time and place. Blanch is influenced by the transient nature of the sky and its ever changing relationship with the landscape below. Aside from being aesthetically beautiful, the imagery she produces tends to evoke fleeting memories and emotions. Blanch has unquestionably mastered the art of film photography, which is evident with her remarkable ‘Box Brownie’ panoramas, that are truly inspirational, if not breathtaking. The images are motivated by the textures of the landscape and posses an ethereal and ghostly quality that appear to be inspired by photographers of the late 19^th and early 20^th century.

A fan of the road-trip, many of Blanch’s images have been taken on various trips to the outskirts of Adelaide and whilst travelling around Australia. Her images express her vision of the Australian Lanscape that embody an inner authenticity and explore the nature of the sublime. Blanch has consciously chosen the Box Brownie camera for its simplistic design with only two settings, to shift the focus to the creative process which allows her to take multiple exposures in-camera to create the panoramas.

In 2010, Blanch won the Helpmann award, then in 2011 she exhibited in SALA Festival at the Fringe Benefits Gallery on Hindley St and again this year 2012 at Gallery on Waymouth. Blanch has also attended a Tin Type photography workshop in Victoria at Gold Street Studios which was funded by a grant from Carclew Youth Arts. Since the workshop, Blanch has taken some time out from university study to experiment with the processes further and to learn all of the technical aspects of which she now teaches along with various wet-plate workshops with James Tylor and Alex Bishop-Thorpe at the Fontanelle Studio.

Blanch completed her Bachelor of Visual Arts last year, specializing in photography at the South Australian School of Art and is currently living in Hobart whilst completing her Honours in photography at the Tasmanian School of Art. Undoubtedly, Blanch is only at the beginning of what I am sure will be an amazing career. To view more of the amazing images from Blanch, check out her website www.aliceblanch.com

It seems that more photographic artists are embracing the “Art” of film photography with its resurgence of the nostalgic and the sense of memory that it provokes. There is something about the process of watching the images unfold before you and the sense of anticipation that comes with it. I for one am on board….let the revolution begin.