Annalise Neil | Thinking About Photography

Annalise Neil

©Annalise Neil, Recalibration, cyanotype and watercolor

With nature imagery as a visual framework, my work considers ideas such as perception, the unknown, and ecology. Metaphors that come from researching these scientific and philosophical tenets are woven into my pieces. The concepts and the images they lead to can be used to help interpret living as one species amongst wildly complex, interconnected social and natural environments. I am keenly interested in discussing states of change and possibility: past-is-prologue enmeshed with ongoing scientific illuminations. I endeavor to create work that will lead to contemplation and reflection for the viewer, and that allows for a re-thinking of the human’s relationship to reality and our surroundings.

©AnnaliseNeil, Ancestral Accretion, cyanotype and watercolor

©Annalise Neil, Propulsive Molt, cyanotype and watercolor

All the images in my cyanotypes are direct prints of hand-cut negatives from my photographs. As I move through the world, I take pictures of compelling things I discover and then turn them into negatives that I print on transparency film. I weave this harvested imagery into my works on paper, which I later embroider with formal and surreal watercolor paint. I have hundreds of negatives that I build my compositions with, and organize them in categories like birds, mushrooms, moons, and places.

©Annalise Neil, Vivify, cyanotype and watercolor

When I am in the planning stage of my work, I lay the negatives out on white paper which covers many tables and the floor. It is something like casting characters in a play, as I try one and then another in my arrangements. This is a lyrical stage of my work, and is very much a collage-style technique that I employ to find visual and conceptual harmony.

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