Local fine art photographer Becky Wortman presents an exhibition of her photo transfers on canvas this February and March at the Union Street Grill and Grotto on Fifth Street in Courtenay.
Wortman is a local fine art photographer born and raised in the Comox Valley. She studied visual arts at North Island College where she was enrolled in the Fine Arts and Design program, and later obtained her professional photography certificate in 2006. She then began experimenting with different forms of digital photography.
Wortman wanted to combine her love of photography and printmaking to create original images that would give the same raw feeling as black-and-white photoprinting in the darkroom and a poster quality from printmaking.
She found the effect she was looking for through photo transfers. A photo transfer is a manual process by which the artist transfers the thin layer of plastic on which the image is developed onto another surface. For this series, Wortman transfers her images onto canvas; this process transforms the photographs into a textured, unpredictable image.
Using her traditional, analog Kodak Duaflex camera (1957), which is a type of camera held at waist level with a twin-lens reflex (TLR), Wortman has created a light-tight tunnel going from the waist-level viewfinder up to her digital lens. Shooting through the Duaflex adds an aged, textured look that supports her subjects.
Her compositions involve isolated objects, taken mostly from nature, collected while out on walks with her daughters. She removes the objects from their natural environment and places them in a “white space,” highlighting what originally drew her to the object in its natural environment: colour, shape, or texture.
Union Street Grill and Grotto is located at 477 Fifth St. in Courtenay, and is open Monday through Sunday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
For more information about purchasing a canvas, contact Wortman at 250-338-6310 or visit Becky Wortman on Facebook.
— Becky Wortman