"Corridors is a series of eight photographic transparencies displayed in light boxes. Featuring mainly luminous blues, greens and yellows as a result of the artist's manipulation of photographic film, they depict interior spaces in a hospital. The photographs are in sharp focus only in the foreground of the image, at the level of the corridor walls, and have been taken with a shallow depth of field. This results in dissolution into more abstracted forms in the areas further away from the camera. In most images this is in the centre, which dissolves into an intense blue glow. Blue light, similar in shade to that of 'Chartres blue', a long-lasting blue stained glass developed in the twelfth century in France for church windows, has become a signature element to Yass's work. Her technique for making images involves taking two photographs of her subject and superimposing them. One is a 'positive' image, the normal form of a photographic image, and the other is a 'negative' image, where light and dark are inverted as on the negative of a photographic print. The photographs are taken within a few seconds of each other. Yass has explained: 'The negative image makes bright areas blue, so bright or transparent areas get blocked by the blue. The final picture is produced by overlaying the positive and blue negative images and printing from that. I think of the space between positive and negative images as a gap.'" (Taken from the Tate website)
Immediately after looking at images of Catherine Yass's work, I was captivated by the colours used, and how the images do, to me, look quite disorienting, I think there is something wonderful about the colours in these images, as they are mainly yellows blues and greens, there are certain connotations to those colours, with all three being quite calm colours. Even though the colours used are "calm" colours, the colours make the photographs have an air of confusion about them, like there is something not right about the colours used, maybe because the series "Corridors" is set in a hospital.
I like how Yass's photography has a sort of "trippy" feel to them, with atypical colours, teamed up with the chemistry behind the development and the way that they are produced may be representational of the chemistry of the brain.
The technique Yass uses it quite interesting also, as it states above that she takes two images, overlays them and then develops them, this is something I will definitely look into trying, as Stephen suggested that I should alter the film then develop the photographs from the films, instead of using Photoshop to do so. It will be really interesting to try these techniques, also I will obviously try other techniques like adding parts of bleach to the negative films, and drawing on top of the films before development, in order to alter the image.
"I think of the space between positive and negative images as a gap" - this is a really interesting quote by Catherine Yass about her work, as she is talking about a "gap" in the technique that she uses, it also might relate to a gap in the subject that her work focuses on? - something to look into.
"Yass's first publicly exhibited works, in the early 1990s, were portraits exploring the relationship between the personalities projected and the environments against which they were set. In 1994 she was one of three British artists commissioned by the Public Art Development Trust (a London based charity aiming to promote art and education about art in public spaces) to make a series of images for Springfield Hospital in south west London, a psychiatric institution built in the nineteenth century ...... Yass became interested in the empty spaces as images in and of themselves, perceiving them as even more disorientating to the viewer without their intended subjects. She uses light boxes to enhance this effect. She has stated: 'The work is not only about the image but also about the light boxes in a physical space. This produces another doubling or turning as the viewer switches between the space of the image and the space they're in. There is a disorientation as they are caught in the gap between them.'" (taken from the Tate website)
Just a little bit more information above, about the series corridors, as I thought this would be useful for me to read.
It is also interesting to find out that Yass's photographs were taken in a psychiatric institution, as the main focal point for my practice last semester was Stallington Mental hospital. I focused on the abandoned state of Stallington, as it was something that had been left behind and forgotten about but had a big history behind it. Mental health is something I am really interested in at the moment, as I work with people who were once in the Stallington hospital. I am interested now in moving away from the focus of mental hospitals and psychiatric institutions, and photographing other spaces which have no connotations with mental health, (like abandoned factories for instance) as there is an air of awkwardness about abandoned places, which hopefully will make any viewer feel uncomfortable. Obviously this teamed up with altering photographs before they go into the gallery will hopefully work well together.
Above are some photographs from the "Corridors" series.
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