Maya talks with Craig Keenan about his Cyanotype prints, the inspiration behind them and his process.

Craig Kennan is a print maker with a special love for cyanotypes. Cyanotypes are a non-toxic photographic process that uses the chemicals Potassium ferricyanide and Ferric ammonium citrate and sunlight. The process is 170 years old and was discovered by Sir John Hercshel in 1842 (his father discovered the planet Uranus). To print a cyanotype, you mix up equal parts of the chemicals and paint it onto any canvas that is made from natural materials. When it is exposed to light, it creates a deep, rich blue colour. Keenan is particularly drawn to the richness of the blue colour it creates and the way cyanotypes combine art, photography, and science. I interviewed him to find out more about his love of cyanotypes, the inspiration behind his work and what his work is about.

Why have you chosen cyanotypes as your main medium?

“There’s so much about the cyanotype process I love. There are lots of different aspects to it. Its simultaneously photographic and painterly. It can be gestural and whimsical or ordered and tidy. It involves (for me anyway) an understanding and application of both digital and analogue processes. It is fun to make one off unique piece, but you can also easily make editions. You are really only limited by one thing - the colour. And actually, as it happens, I find it really very freeing to have a dominating limiting factor like that. It helps focus a hyperactive creative mind. My work is primarily based around process. So, the thing I enjoy most is just experimenting with different mediums and then trying to hone the results. What inspires me is largely the act of making the work itself. It is a therapy for sure, and there is nothing I’d rather spend my time doing.”

What is your work about?

“I tend to avoid throwing out too much in the way of meaning behind my work, I think the subjectivity of what makes someone connect with a piece or love it, or hate it, is where the joy resides in art. I prefer not to offer meaning in my pieces but rather have them sit as satisfying or attractive compositions - with the audience projecting their own meaning onto things.

Mostly anyway. There are one or two pieces where the message is obvious (the ghost prints for example)”.

What is it about natural and wildlife that inspires you and makes you want to create images of it?

“I absolutely love the natural world, science and philosophy about the universe. I love animals and nature in general. I am fascinated by the very existence of Life in all forms. There is a quote from Brian Cox (possibly originally from Carl Sagan) which goes, “We are the cosmos made conscious, and the means by which the universe understands itself.” This is a beautifully succinct notion on a topic that is almost too big to comprehend. The idea that we are (and I use this word carefully) literally, made of the same stuff that was created seconds after the Big Bang blows my mind. I think Life is incredibly rare and astoundingly bizarre and beautiful.

I guess then as I tend to be preoccupied with how mind blowing it is to consider the size of the universe by looking up at the stars. Or how it is that clouds form, or how cephalopods can do what they do, or why, then certain themes start to appear in my work. In short, I think nature is cool, so I use it as my subject matter!”

Do you think printing wildlife and nature images opposed to photographing it creates a different message?

“I do not think the two things are mutually exclusive. In fact, the I think the opposite is true. To be able to print I first must photograph. If the question is why I print the image through cyanotype as opposed to digitally in full colour, then the answer would be - it is all about the process. They joy in the method and action of creating each print myself with my own hands. It is why I do it! I am not too concerned with sales or marketing etc. If I had all the money in the world, I would spend all my time making work, and probably just put a lot of it in storage. The fun is in the process.”

How do you create your prints?

“After I have composed my image, usually on photoshop, but sometimes via collage, I’ll get the image printed as a negative onto acetate. Meanwhile, I will mix the light sensitive solution then apply it to the substrate, usually with a sponge brush. That will dry for 24 hours then I will either expose it out in the sunshine, or for more control I’ll use an exposure unit. Then I will develop, stop, and fix the image with water and wait for it to dry. I’ll usually weigh down the prints for a period of time to flatten them out as they get a bit unruly after all that saturation and drying.”

I would like to talk a bit about 2 of your prints that are my favourite. “Funny Feeling” and the ghost plastic bag. Can you describe what they are about and how you came up with the idea?

““Funny Feeling” was the first cyanotype edition I ever made. While learning the process it occurred to me that it would be interesting to use an actual X-ray as a negative. I then managed to find a load at a car boot sale - from the 70s in France somewhere. I exposed a few of them and the one that jumped out was that chest X-ray, I saw space to screen print something and the first thing that came to mind was butterflies. An obvious one, but sometimes the simpler the idea the more effective it is.

I'd heard somewhere that plastic bags take anywhere up to 1,000 years to decompose and had seen a bag floating around in the street looking like a little ghost. It got me thinking about how people are still afraid of things like ghosts and Jesus and things like that.

People dedicate their time to the fear of these imagined threats rather than dealing with ones we know to be demonstrably true.

Perhaps the scariest thing I could think of is destroying our own habitat and leaving behind a planet full of carrier bags and straws blowing around in the wind.This is obviously all quite gloomy, so I gave him some cute little eyes to take the edge off.”

I hope everyone reading this loved Craig’s work just as much as I do! If you want to check out some more of his beautiful prints, have a look at his website and his Instagram.

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Cyanotypes - Craig Keenan