The Moon and a Smile Exhibition

The Moon and a Smile exhibition opens in Swansea this month. Metro is thrilled to be supporting artists Anna Fox and Sophy Rickett whose work is part of this group exhibition which celebrates the part Swansea played in the development of photography in the 1840’s and 50’s.

The Dillwyn family circle in particular, was amongst the earliest and most enthusiastic experimenters with the new technology of photography, which was announced in 1839. John Dillwyn Llewellyn (1810-82) and his sister Mary took one of the earliest photographs of a smile whilst his daughter, Thereza, took one of the earliest photographs of the moon. Along with William Henry Fox Talbot an inventor and photography pioneer (1800-1877) and a cousin of Emma, John Dillwyn Llewellyn’s s wife, the family collaborated and experimented together and left a rich and unique record of their experiments, perhaps the most complete record of a family’s intimacy with photography in the 1840s and 50s.

Responding to this unique archive, the Glynn Vivien Gallery has arranged eight new commissions from contemporary international artists. Each artist has created a distinct rich body of work for the exhibition, following their own practice and inspiration. The exhibition encompasses photography, installation, artist books and moving image, and explores themes of memory, archives, botanics, time, family, and industrialisation.

Anna Fox explains about her work; “The work plays with time and illusion, echoing the provocation of the Dillwyn archive. Each image is constructed with dozens of separate images. First a background plate is created and then, together with a team of assistants I photograph what happens in the location over approximately a 3-hour period. Images of the people are selected and then layered in post-production onto the background.

“This process and it’s results has led me to think more intently about photography time and memory and to consider that a single image, shot at 125th of a second, is not necessarily a memento of an event in the way that an image constructed out of many images and in a few hours might be. The picture made up of many images represents what has been seen over a period of time and so has a new relationship to the notion of what constitutes a documentary photograph. These are slowed down images connected to memories of a period of time in a particular place and an event or series of events that happened there.”

Metro has produced C Type and black and white fibre prints for Sophy Rickett and a large panoramic C Type print mounted to aluminium for Anna Fox.

Their work and the work of Greta Alfaro, Astrid Kruse Jensen, Neeta Madahar, Melanie Rose, Sharon Morris, Helen Sear, Patricia Ziad will be displayed alongside a selection of original 19th century photographs that had particular resonance for their projects, on loan from the Amgueddfa Cymru-National

For more information about the exhibition

Room 3, Glynn Vivian, Alexandra Road, Swansea SA1 5DZ

Exhibition dates: 4th March – 23rd April 2017
Opening times: 10:00am – 5:00pm

Admission to the exhibition is free

Gallery Talk
17th March: 12:30-13:30 Room 1
Join writer Kate Best to look at some of the 19th century photographs and contemporary projects in The Moon and a Smile.

Free admission but booking is essential

Images © Anna Fox

We offer the following types of printing

Partial photo of a face covered in hundres and thousands printed on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper which is available in both gloss and a semi matt finish.

C Type Professional Photo Printing

We have been printing the highest quality C-Type prints for decades and digital C-Types produced on our Lambda have the archival and tonal benefits of traditional photographic papers, with the advantages of digital photo printing. C-Types are a conventional photographic print from a digital file, and as such is the most suitable option when printing a colour photograph.

Printing linking you through to our giclee printing service.

Fine Art Giclée Printing

We have Hahnemuhle and Canson Giclée Certified Studio staus and with over 30 years experience in photographic printing we use the most advanced inkjet technologies. Giclée is a gallery-quality inkjet print onto fine art watercolour paper. This is most suitable for art illustrations, but can also be used for colour and B&W photographs.

This a picture take of a very large black and white ilford fibre based print of two people.

Black & White Printing

We have worked in collaboration with Harman Technology to develop genuine B&W silver gelatin Fibre-Based and Resin-Coated photographic prints from digital files. The Resin-Coated is suitable for most types of B&W printing, and Fibre-Based is ideal for exhibition quality.

Metro called it Direct to Media. Essentially this is a UV printing machine that can produce very large, up to 3m x 2m prints on any flat material less than 10cm thick. So we can print on wood, metal, slate and pretty much anything you can think of.

Direct to Media Printing

Direct to media printing is exactly that; we print your image directly to a substrate of your choice. Be it paper, card, aluminium, Perspex, canvas, wood, slate… Our Jetrix UV inkjet flatbed printer can print on any flat surface up to 3m x 2m, less than 10cm thick. To ensure your material is suitable, we can print test prints around A4 in size.

This is a print on adhesive vinyl. The vinyl is on a roll and 1.2m wide, but it can printed in multiple pieces in order to cover a wall.

Vinyl Printing

Vinyl Phototex is chosen for its high-quality Giclée finish as well as its ease of application to wall or mounting material due to its self-adhesive properties. We can print on vinyl using our direct to media printer, in strips of 1.5m x 3m and these can be applied to the wall in the fashion of wallpaper to cover a complete wall or interior.