swan, swan, pirouette

Consider this an incantation:
to cast a spell,
to conjure a world,
to get lost in the woods on purpose.

Once upon a time, I needed an escape; to let my mind wander in the realm of enchantment. The journey began with a plastic swan and from there it just spiraled. My head filled with frogs, jewels, brambles, blood, and tears. Inspired by fairytales, this series features female protagonists grounded in the natural world. Some images reference well-known narratives, while others draw from recurring motifs within the genre.

Working at the intersection of photography and printmaking, I use the language of symbols to craft stories from silhouettes. I construct images using the photogram process, a cameraless technique of capturing shadows that dates back to the 1830s. The resulting photogravure plates are then inked, layered with delicate tissue papers to add color, and printed on an intaglio press.

I've recently added chiyogami and marbled papers to the mix. Tiny dancers swirl against varied backgrounds, referencing an increasingly chaotic world, and mirrors are framed by floral patterns reminiscent of smoke.

In an era when tales of scaling glass mountains feel like metaphors for everyday life, I've found solace in recontextualizing mythic themes. There's a certain confluence in using a process as old as photography to explore folk tales that are even older. Like so many of the stories that have inspired this work, it's all about transformation.

Bio:
Jennifer Shaw is a New Orleans-based artist working at the intersection of photography and printmaking. In her work, she addresses themes of climate, family, and home. From plastic cameras to photogravures, play and experimentation are integral to her practice.

Jennifer's images have been published in the monographs Hurricane Story and Nature/Nurture. Her work is in the collections of the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Ogden Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. In 2020, Shaw was one of three finalists for the Gibbes Museum's 1858 Prize, and in 2021 she was recognized in Photolucida's Critical Mass Top 50.

This is her second solo exhibition in San Miguel de Allende..

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