02/07/2025
Alternative Process student Diana Tschomakoff’s ( )Van D**e Brown prints created for her final project in the fall 🍃
Van D**e Brown printing involves hand-coating a surface with ferric ammonium citrate, tartaric acid, and silver nitrate. When exposed to UV light, the chemicals turn a deep brown color. Placing a digital negative onto the paper, masks the image, resulting in a wide range of tones and fine details.
An excerpt from Diana’s artist statement:
With this series of images, I wanted to highlight key ideas and states of being that I experienced throughout my period of depression. While from a distance or upon first glance, the compositions may not immediately evoke sadness or negativity, regardless of the fact that their deeper meaning does. The vines serve as a metaphor for how often people in our immediate life may not recognize someone struggling because of how they are able to hide it. The reason I chose to represent this concept with the Van D**e process is not only for its brown hue and earthly tones that feel intrinsically connected to nature, but there is something about the way that the resulting images feel like they are hiding something. Apart from me physically cutting the edges of the frames, I don’t feel that they reveal the “full picture” or story. Without the influence of color interfering, the muted, faded, and dull textures create a feeling of darkness and lacking, which I also happen to find beautiful at the same time.
