PENNSYLVANIA HOMECOMING Exhibition Dates 21st February 2024 to 5th May 2024
Official Opening Celebration 25th Feb 2024 2pm to 5 pm – opening Speech by Ellie Young at 2.30 pm
“I grew up in the Laurel Highlands region of Southwestern Pennsylvania in a small town called Latrobe. The Laurel Highlands is a popular area for hiking, fishing, camping, mountain biking, downhill and cross-country skiing, and other outdoor activities. It’s also an area of stunning natural beauty.
I’ve not lived there for 35 years. At 18 I left for college and then lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for 25 years before moving to Melbourne 5 years ago. I’d wanted to go back to visit my mom in June 2020, but the pandemic put a pause to that. Thankfully I had the opportunity to go for six weeks in June/July 2022. I was keen to capture the landscape of my youth with my Chamonix 4×5 camera.
Initially my plan was almost clinical in nature, to document favorite places of my childhood. But then it became something more. I hadn’t realized how much that landscape is a part of me and helped create who I am. When I returned to Melbourne with nearly 100 4×5 photos I wanted to do something with this body of work other than look at photos occasionally on my iPad. Thinking of how best to celebrate these images, off I went.
My passion is carbon transfer printing, a slow, laborious, somewhat precarious technique that is fraught with challenges. Each print can take up to a week to fabricate. Tiny imperfections remind us that they are handmade objects produced with great care. One aspect of carbon transfer printing I particularly like is once you learn the basic techniques you can go off in any direction. Prints can look dreamy and otherworldly, tack-sharp and photorealistic, or like recently discovered 150-year-old artefacts. Possibilities are endless.
Even though I live 10,000 miles away now this little corner of Southwestern Pennsylvania will always be my home.”