Susan Derges - Full Moon Rowan
from the series "Alder Brook" 2012.
Alder Brook was a body of work that was made over several years in the dark room fusing imagery from the skies above Dartmoor with subjects and watery environments below.
Susan Derges is a photographer who has explored a wide range of approaches to the medium and became known in the 1990’s for her large camera-less photograms of some of the rivers and shorelines of Devon and Dartmoor where she has lived for the past 33 years. The River Taw was a particular focus for this work and a book titled “Woman Thinking River” was published in 1998 by Fraenkel Gallery in San Fransisco. Subsequently she has worked in residence at the Museum for the History of Science, Oxford; Kingswood forest in Ashford, Kent; the Royal Museums Greenwhich and informally with the Marine biology department at the University of Plymouth, who she consulted during the production of a body of work titled Tide Pools that were exhibited at the RPS Bristol in 2022. In the early 1980’s she lived and worked in Japan for 6 years and this formative experience has influenced much of her image making and thinking, particularly concerning the natural world and our relationship to it. She has collaborated with writers and poets on a number of publications and her works can be found in public and private collections world-wide including the V&A, London; Arts Council of England; and RAMM, Exeter.
Because I appreciate and want to support initiatives like Photofusion at Beehive Place in Brixton that offer an invaluable range of resources, training, mentoring and exhibition opportunities for emerging and continuing artists and photographers. In the current climate of cuts and devaluing of the role of the arts across the board within our culture this is more important than ever.
Susan Derges - Full Moon Rowan
from the series "Alder Brook" 2012.
Alder Brook was a body of work that was made over several years in the dark room fusing imagery from the skies above Dartmoor with subjects and watery environments below.
Susan Derges is a photographer who has explored a wide range of approaches to the medium and became known in the 1990’s for her large camera-less photograms of some of the rivers and shorelines of Devon and Dartmoor where she has lived for the past 33 years. The River Taw was a particular focus for this work and a book titled “Woman Thinking River” was published in 1998 by Fraenkel Gallery in San Fransisco. Subsequently she has worked in residence at the Museum for the History of Science, Oxford; Kingswood forest in Ashford, Kent; the Royal Museums Greenwhich and informally with the Marine biology department at the University of Plymouth, who she consulted during the production of a body of work titled Tide Pools that were exhibited at the RPS Bristol in 2022. In the early 1980’s she lived and worked in Japan for 6 years and this formative experience has influenced much of her image making and thinking, particularly concerning the natural world and our relationship to it. She has collaborated with writers and poets on a number of publications and her works can be found in public and private collections world-wide including the V&A, London; Arts Council of England; and RAMM, Exeter.
Because I appreciate and want to support initiatives like Photofusion at Beehive Place in Brixton that offer an invaluable range of resources, training, mentoring and exhibition opportunities for emerging and continuing artists and photographers. In the current climate of cuts and devaluing of the role of the arts across the board within our culture this is more important than ever.