Botanica Photographica

Born in the midst of COVID-19, the « Botanica Fotographica » project results from the artist's decision to explore her immediate environment. Surprising discoveries then lead her to create cyanotypes and she chose to create images with this old photographic process without using a camera. The realization of this photographic project led to the realization of images of plants which are out of the ordinary. The fact of making photograms lead to having images that cannot be obtained in any other way; the camera, whether digital or traditional, cannot render these kinds of images. Moreover, by using the cyanotype process, the images obtained are all in shades of blue, which is rare in the artistic world.

The originality of the images obtained attracts the eye, we want to be nearer and take a closer look. The « Botanica Fotographica » series has 17 images.

Chantal Emond is native of the Eastern Townships in Quebec. She has lived and worked in Mont-Saint-Hilaire in Montérégie since 1999. After obtaining her degrees in anthropology, archival science and art history from the University of Montreal, she obtained a master's degree in restoration of works of art from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. Her artistic practice, carried out in parallel with her profession as a restorer, is centered around photography. She has taken several photography-related workshops over the years, the last ones being in fall 2019 and summer 2021 at the Maine Media Workshop (U.S.A). Since 2018, she has devoted herself to experimenting with the cyanotype process without using a camera. The resulting frames show a transformed reality. This exploration offers a complementarity to our perception of reality. She has exhibited solo in Montreal and has also participated in several group exhibitions.

Opening on Sunday March 12, 2023, at 2 p.m. Free admission