None of Chloe Sells’ photographic artworks are simply rectangular or in defined shape. They all have odd shapes, which in a way refers to the emotional character of our perception of reality. Her photo works and nature shots with superimposed colours and shapes, have the physical aspect of nature as the central theme. Born between the mountains of Colorado and partly living in Botswana, Sells has a deep connection to the natural world; a connection which she expresses through her elaborate process in her analogue darkroom. Her exhibition holds in Galerie Miranda in Paris.

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All the photo works of Chloe Sells resonate with the enigmatic and uplifting experience of nature, to which she feels a lifetime connection. “I was born in Colorado. So, I grew up in the mountains. The photographs that are in the latest exhibition are from the place where I was born. I grew up hiking in nature, spending many days camping with my school and with my family.”

When she was 20, Chloe Sells went to Botswana as a tourist and remained longer than was envisaged. “I went there as a tourist, and I met my husband. It is very wild and natural, very different from where I'm from. So, altogether, I've spent most of my life outdoors in wild places. I find it very enlivening to be in nature.”

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Her work also relays to its viewers a familiar social standpoint, referring to the fact that people generally do not have enough connection with nature. “I don't feel I have to take any stance on the environment or global warming. What is more important to me is beauty and being able to connect with places that help us feel more peaceful and awake and alive and present and more in confluence with the Earth that we live on because I think that generally, people are very disconnected from that.”

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Physical experience

Sells works exclusively with analogue. She mostly spends her time printing large sizes in her darkroom in London, and creatively experimenting with techniques of adding extra layers, textures and colours on the landscape photographs. “The physicality of my work in the darkroom, painting onto the surfaces is very important. The physical work mimics the physicality of nature, which has a healing effect. Most people suffer disconnection from nature because they live in cities. If somebody owns one of my books or a unique photograph, they have the experience of the place, and I can only hope that offers them a sense of peacefulness when looking at or contemplating the work.”

Abstraction and Aesthetics

The works of Sells have a substantial degree of abstraction, which subtly avoids a documentary or literal evaluation of the image. “They're so abstract that you could hang them on the wall in any orientation. And that's fine with me. I want the viewer to incorporate their own experiences when experiencing the work. If the picture offers some kind of solace, or a moment that gives pause from the madness of how we live then I have succeeded.”

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I use locations that are personally important to me.

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The role of aesthetics exceeds ornamental beauty; it gives meaning to the artwork itself and connects the spectator to the experience of the original location of the work. “I was drawn to beauty over many years of schooling and practise and discourse. My work became a conversation with beauty and place and how those things form who we are. So, I think as much as beauty is the outcome, the place is also important, and I use locations that are personally important to me, but I endow them, hopefully with something more universal, like beauty.”

Ethical and political

At the same time, Chloe Sells also thinks that the political aspect of beauty is often overlooked. “The last couple of years have been challenging. There's nothing in our lives that says: take a break, take a deep breath. That's not the message we're getting. So this discussion of beauty is important. There should be more objects that confer beauty, more public art, more places where people can come together and express common interests in a kind-hearted way. There needs to be time and space that is not dominated by the mind. In that way, there is a political aspect to beauty. When I spend so much time in nature, I'm constantly reminded of how interconnected and perfect nature is. And when I get into the darkroom, it's a matter of bringing that out.”

When contemplating the images of nature and the meagre role of natural beauty in our modern rationally inclined society, one could say that art can be the much-needed antidote. “I think that the ethical aspect of art has to do with the actual raising of consciousness. I feel that there's so much more that we could do here to find peace within ourselves. The dominant direction of culture, politics, the human spirit at this time is completely counter to equanimity and beauty.”

Non-square reality

From her artistic approach, Sells wants to get away from the factual description of reality. She makes photos of nature, and afterwards, she superimposes colours and different kinds of forms in the darkroom. The meditative experience in the darkroom is an essential part of the actual work. “I enjoy that. I have no problem being by myself, and in the dark, I find the process meditative. I do question what reality is. I’m trying to portray a deeper sense of reality in my images. But, of course, it's a subjective reality. And in this case, it's a personal reality.”

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In our experience of reality, we are synthesising different personal experiences, conscious and unconscious.

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Further examination revealed that none of her pieces are square or rectangular. They have odds forms. “I play with the form because when you look out of your eyes, you never see reality as a rectangular form. The television is square. An art piece, a canvas, almost every photograph is square. And they're supposed to represent our experience of life. But how can they do that if they're just square? That's not how we see the world. So again, I play with this idea of what reality is. In our experience of reality, we are synthesising different personal experiences, conscious and unconscious.”

By superimposing other layers on her images of nature, Chloe Sells extends the perception of reality. “We take things literally because that's what culture and educational institutions teach us. The sky is blue; the grass is green, these kinds of things. But actually, how we understand that within ourselves is not that simple. In my work, I want to represent many different layers that are at play in our perception of reality. You've got memory and history, story, light and colour, seasonality and weather all changing on a day to day basis when you experience nature.”

Colour and emotions

In her new released photographic works, we see images of the Rocky Mountains with superimposed colours and forms. This conveys the emotions which are always in sync with the experiences associated with the project. Every work has its own unique shape and colour combination. “There is a dynamic conversation between the original photograph and the form and colours that are later added. There's an element of accident and surprise between the image and the marbling process that I am using. I have combined the Japanese and Italian processes and then broken all of the rules. I never know exactly what I'm going to get. The drawing over the surface enlivens the image itself. I don't see one part as more important than the other.”

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The colours stand for the emotional and also the unconscious part of us.

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Her newly released works and others are characterised by their lively and colourful appearance, as if the colours want to tell the spectator their own story. Do they stand for the emotional part of our experience of nature? “The colours stand for the emotional and also the unconscious part of us. They are related. They also represent different layers of experience. There's also just the aesthetic use of colour. I make many prints of the same image and work on it until the combination of the different techniques begins to create a conversation between myself and the piece that is in concert. ”

The analogue process

The darkroom process is very elaborate and results in many trial and error prints. Chloe Sells is not sharing her secrets but stresses the physical aspect and the beauty of the analogue printing process, compared with the digital dryness and the repetitiveness of the computer. “I think you can do amazing things with the computer, but I do prefer to be physical. I don't like sitting in front of a computer. I started studying in 1993. Digital photography wasn't an option at that time. I've always been an analogue photographer. Moreover, I like the outcomes better from an aesthetic perspective. I prefer the quality that you get from film and the many layers of colour that are imbedded in color printing paper. I get something much more beautiful with a C-type print than I would out of a digital print.”

Born in Aspen, Colorado, Chloe Sells began using photography in her artwork in 1993. She graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2000 with a Bachelor's degree in Fine Art, with a major in photography, taking her Masters in Fine Art from Central St. Martins in 2011. She currently lives and works between London and Maun, Botswana. Using medium and large format film cameras, she produces each unique C-type print by hand in a darkroom. In some cases she works further onto the surfaces of her imagery using paint, marker and ink.

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Exhibition: Galerie Miranda, Paris 4, 21 rue du Château d’Eau, 75010 Paris, 4 November 2021 - 15 January 2022
http://www.galeriemiranda.com/

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