Invented in 1956 by Pierre Cordier, the chemigram combines the physics of painting (varnish, wax, oil) and the chemistry of photography (photosensitive emulsion, developer, fixer) ; without a camera, without an enlarger and in full light.
Cordier’s work involves an exploration of the more abstract although I think it may actually be impossible to create a chemigram that isn’t abstract as it completely revolves around the idea of painting darkroom chemicals onto the paper in the light a practice that is frowned upon as you are seen as ruining the paper that you are working on.
The first image that I have found from Cordier’s website seems to be used mainly by scratching into the paper and then painting the chemicals onto the paper, mainly fix as that is the best way to get the golden colour he has produced, I find that this image reminds me very much of static screen that used to appear on televisions. I find that the texture seems to almost jump out at the person viewing it and this could be an idea that I could use within my own work in the darkroom.
The second image that I have chosen to look at is this image which I feel that he may have used paint with to create the blue parts of the image, again he has scratched into the print and I find that this is something that I want to try and work into my work if I have the opportunity. I think he has used mainly fix and then placed the image into the developer to create the pure black part of the image.
As this is truly experimental I won’t be able to create work that is similar to this but it has given me inspiration to create images that are similar to these.
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