ARTIST STATEMENT

There was a long while in my youth when no one seemed to be certain if I was incredibly artistic or just incredibly destructive. To sum up succinctly, I’ll default to something my roommate once said, “Amber takes something normal, destroys it until it’s really weird and says, ‘Look! I made it better!’”

I’m a multimedia artist and the degradation of “normality” for me includes many things, though my favorite is by far film. I love to see how far 35mm can be pushed before it breaks. This whole thing began with a few creative ideas and many happy accidents. I used a fisheye camera in conjunction with my vintage Sears Super KS for a quadruple exposure series that gained more notoriety than I expected. From there, I’ve continued to push, using 35mm plastic cameras.

I dye my film with everything from boiled flowers to my own venal blood (drawn by a medical professional). Here, you can see boiled lavender, chamomile blossoms, baking soda, and a multiple exposure taken with a $4 Pop Cam that is so cheaply made, it has to be taped shut.

My work is completely unedited, created using traditional (and not so traditional) darkroom techniques to achieve unpredictable results. Nothing about 35mm is precise. That’s what makes it more fun than digital. Analog art is like alchemy. Dying a roll of film sets a spell that won’t unfold until the pictures have developed. It is magical, and that’s why, for me at least, 35mm will never die.

http://ambervalentine.wix.com/home

Instagram: AmberAudra

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