Julia Skopnik
Magdeburg / GermanyAfter learning to do color prints from negatives in general, I did a lot of experiments and then eventually started to enjoy exploring subtractive color mixing on photo paper. […]
Biography / Julia Skopnik
After learning to do color prints from negatives in general, she did a lot of experiments and then eventually started to enjoy exploring subtractive color mixing on photo paper. That’s what she is focused on right now. Therefore she does a lot of multiple exposures between each of them in the darkroom. She uses different types of templates, stencils or other things for covering up the to be exposed photo paper. Creating these tools, especially cutting stencils, as well as abstracting shapes, reminded me of doing street art and graffiti, which was a huge passion of her in her youth. She has had thoughts before about possibilities of combining photography and urban art, but never an idea that sparked her motivation to take action in that line of creative work. Finally she found a way of connecting different elements of graffiti with his darkroom work. It’s a process full of concentration and preparation, but also of positive accidents and coincidence since she works in total darkness and develop in open trays or rain gutters, not using a machine. It feels good to give up control and to let herself be surprised by what comes out of the dark, so she writes.