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Light through Leaves Diptych (Two 18x24 handmade cyanotypes) | Photography by Christine So

Created and Sold by Christine So

Christine So

Light through Leaves Diptych (Two 18x24 handmade cyanotypes) - Photography

Unavailable

Handmade

Woman Owned

Sustainable

Made In USA

Made To Order

Natural Materials

SOLD. One-of-a-kind.

UNFRAMED. TWO original works on paper.
On 100% cotton watercolor paper. Signed on the back by the artist.
Ships flat in a box.

Each print measures 18 x 24 inches. Once matted and framed in standard 24 x 30" frames, they will span over 48 inches horizontally

Cyanotypes are a 19th century form of cameraless photography. These are triple-exposure cyanotypes, meaning that the plants were laid in three different locations on the photo-sensitive paper and the image was re-exposed for precise amounts of time, to create the ghostly overlapping images.

My botanical cyanotypes are each one-of-a-kind slow cameraless photographs made outdoors using natural light and no film negative. There is no lens and there is no etched plate or printing press. As much time is spent in their composition and timing the separate exposures as goes into the final exposure and rinsing.

There is no way to reproduce exactly the same effects even if I keep the same plant cuttings to use in a series before they wilt. There is no carved block nor etched copper plate—only the sun causing the photo chemicals to darken every second that it remains exposed to light.

The simple yet beautiful sight of sunlight shining through leaves always brings me joy. Their translucence no doubt inspired the stained glass windows of medieval cathedrals. I love abstract painting, and in my multiple-exposure cyanotypes, I convert nature into an abstraction of the repeated shapes, patterns and colors.OLD.

Item Light through Leaves Diptych (Two 18x24 handmade cyanotypes)
Created by Christine So
As seen in Private Residence, Oakland, CA
Christine So
Meet the Creator
Wescover creator since 2023
The World Is Blue: Hand-Printed Botanical, Landscape and Abstract Cyanotypes

Christine So is a native San Franciscan painter, photographer and printmaker living across the bay in the hills of Oakland, California. Her paintings and cyanotypes have been commissioned by Starbucks, Mayo Clinic, Kimpton Hotels, Wyndham Worldmark Hotels, MD Anderson Hospital in Houston, UTMB Hospital in Galveston and purchased by private collectors in 10 countries, among them, Timothée Chalamet.

Her calm, monochromatic, nature-inspired works on paper are not printed with ink but are actually a form of photography from the 1800s. She works in the antique photographic process of cyanotypes, creating abstract and botanical monotypes in shades of blue as well as landscape photographs of the foggy woods where she lives. The plants used in her one-off prints are cut from her own garden or found in the woods nearby and printed on pure cotton watercolor paper. No two are alike. Only her landscape photographs developed using giant negatives and the same cyanotype chemicals are replicable, yet even those hand-printed photographs each differ slightly.

She paints in acrylic on canvas and prints cyanotypes on paper. Most of her works on paper are sold unframed though the display photos may depict them as framed on a virtual wall to give a sense of their size. There are some paintings listed as unframed and others as framed. Take not of the description before purchasing.