I just saw this over at Complex Medium: These are photographs developed on leaves, using their natural chlorophyll. They’re made by artist Binh Danh, and the work is on display at the de Young museum in San Fransisco.
Chlorophyll is produced in leaves in response to light, and you might have experimented in school with covering up parts of leaves to see what happens. This is the same idea, only using photo negatives to cover the leaves. The trick seems to be to keep the leaves alive and healthy during the process. With my history of plant-care I should probably not attempt this.
That is seriously cool.
I know! I wonder if they do this at the better photo places: “Yes, can I have this developed on plants, please? Not too big, they’re for my passport.”
[...] 23 Jan 2007 The Art Of Plants Posted by sciencesque under Uncategorized Sometimes, patience, creativity, and a green thumbcan yield wonderful art. Over the past week or so, I’ve come across two great examples of artists using plants as their medium. The first is the work of Binh Danh, a Vietnam-born artist who prints his photographs on leaves. I first saw his work at easternblot.net. By covering a leaf with a photographic negative, pressing between glass plates, and then exposing to the sun for weeks to months at a time, the image can get transfered to the leaf. This occurs because areas of the leaf that don’t get sunlight turn pale, while exposure to sunlight stimulates chlorophyll production, turning that part of the leaf green. The image is then preserved by embedding the leaf in resin. What’s really cool about this technique is that it produces rather detailed shading and gradients of colour. This gives the leaf prints a beautiful realism. Further examples of Binh Danh’s work can be viewed at the Haines Gallery, Silicon Valley Art Museum, and the NPR. If you want to try a similar technique at home, check out this page for instructions. [...]
[...] Via Sciencesque from easternblot.net from Complex medium. (Don’t you love how blog posts form little geneologies too?) [...]
awesome