Rhythm Adjust

These unique silver gelatine prints were created entirely from a home studio/darkroom.

Using archive images of diatoms and a series of nudes produced while isolating with covid 19, the works meditate on the collective and cyclical actions of breath. Exploring both the dependency we have in our natural environment and the intimate relationship we experience in our own microcosmic bodies. Diatoms are single celled organisms that account for around 50% of the world's oxygen, too small to be seen by the naked eye but their blooms can be viewed from space. Deceased diatoms found in the Bodélé Depression in the Sahara are carried in dust clouds and ultimately fertilise the Amazon, the run off of which provides conditions and matter for generations of new diatoms. This cycle highlights the importance of transient existence and the communal action of breath.

Using the 19th century processes of mordançage and solarisation in conjunction with contemporary practice, the repetitive process of printing and reprocessing becomes intimate and reactive revealing the gentle beauty of the tortured print.

Katie Bret-Day is a London based artist that uses viscous materiality of photography to explore the contingent and discursive nature of being. With interests in the posthuman and connected ecology her research explores the amalgamation of digital and physical bodies using alternative methods of image capture, interventions and printing. 

Accolades

Education: Royal College of Art, Distinction, 2020.

In 2018 she was presented as one of five rising talents by the Guardian and her work has been included in the Tate commissioned Photography Ideas Book (2019) and acquired by the British Library.

Katie has been nominated for both the ReGeneration³ project and the Foam Paul Huf Award and received Creative Reviews Zeitgeist Award in 2018. She also holds a First Class degree from the London College of Communication UAL.

www.katiebretday.com
@katiebretday