Francesca Wilkinson
I am a London based botanical photo-artist born in Kent, ‘The Garden of England’ in 1989. I graduated from the MA Photography course at the University for the Creative Arts in 2013 with Distinction.
I have exhibited and won a medal for my photography at The Royal Horticultural Society’s Art and Photography Show, the most prestigious award for botanical art in the United Kingdom.
To create my photographs, I employ an improvised technique of ‘camera-less’ photography, using the flatbed scanner attached to my computer as a lens. This is the process that I use to create all of my photographs and I like to describe it as a type of ‘reverse lit digital photogram.’ I enjoy the tactility of the process and the way that the photographic space is represented differently than with a traditional camera lens, giving an almost 3-dimensional quality to the image. Using a camera-less technique echoes the traditional methods used for the very first botanical photographs taken in the early part of the 19th century, such as the cyanotype photogram.
I have always been passionate about conservation and the natural environment, and the botanical world never ceases to provide me with inspiration. Plants and flowers are beautiful things but there’s more to them than the way they look. For me, photography is a great tool to give plants the space to show not only their beauty- and sometimes ‘weirdness’ – but also their powers. My intention in my work is to highlight the details of the botanical world around us, and to hopefully encourage positive action and conservation for the future.
Locations: London
Categories: Alternative process, Fine Art, Nature