Lair

  • Lair
Lair
NOTE: You do not have permission to copy/replicate/reproduce this image.
Year:
1991
Medium:
Silver Gelatin Emulsion Print with Paint and Gold Leaf
Level:
concourse
Location:

There is no one place in the manmade world that exactly matches a Norinne Betjemann photograph.  Rather, what we see is a mysterious amalgam of several monumental structures and ancient buildings.  Lair looks simultaneously down into a murky depth and heavenward through a high window.  As Above resurrects massive Egyptian columns as a ghostly reflection of a tumbled field of ruins.  Well bars a temple entrance with massive basins. 

Betjemann's composite photographs permit us to discern her working process.  The splattered, edge of light, sensitive photo-emulsion reveals her first step.  She then exposes two or more black-and-white images onto the emulsion, carefully arranging them so that the transitions between are almost seamless.  Finally, she adds subtle touches of color with photo-retouching paint, and gold leaf tracery that resembles the creases in an old, sepia snapshot.

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