I work with photography as a physical, sensitive, malleable material. I use the old ways to take advantage of the magic of the chemical reaction. To be able to choose to control or, on the contrary, to let myself be carried away by the risks and surprises that these processes have in store for us. They account in their own way for the reality that is offered to them. I practice different ancient processes that originated in photography. Wet collodion (1850), the old printing processes I continue to explore: salted paper, albumen paper, cyanotype, platinum printing, and photoengraving, which still allows other renderings. I work with the 20x25 cm or 4x5 inch camera, mostly on glass, metal or MMA plates. I have also worked a lot on Polaroid and Polaroïd emulsion transfer on Japanese paper. I love to experiment and discover alternative techniques on matters like wood, metal, glass, and resin. I work on my images like finished, unique objects. I dig in the wood to place my glass plates and lay my prints there. I combine brass and salvaged metal. I reinvent using what I find that attracts me. The palette is endless and continues to carry me away.

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About
Originally from Arles, Catherine Dovellos was immersed in the image of the rhythm of the Rencontres de la Photographie and its opening evenings at the Théâtre Antique. She grew up in the heart of the kingdom of mosquitoes, the Camargue, its vast, flat, windy expanses of pastel colours. If there is one thing that she received in her genes, it is the Mediterranean, the Greek Mediterranean of Kalymnos, the island of her father, the Mediterranean of Italy and Malta through her mother, and the Mediterranean of Tunisia, where they have lived for a long time. The history of these peoples of the sea, these sponge fishermen, these peoples who have migrated often, these arid, uncompromising and magnificent landscapes. This light, the icons of Byzantine art, the feeling of being part of a lineage, of a story that she needs to translate into an image.