Christine Rendina received a BFA in photography from Columbia College, Chicago, and it was there that she learned the complex gum bichromate process, invented in 1890 by Robert Demachy, an influencial Parisian painter and photographer. After graduating, she worked as a theatrical photographer in Seattle, and began to develop her personal work exclusively using the gum bichromate process, in a series titled, Nude in Landscape. She exhibited her work on the West Coast and then moved to London in 1985, where she continued using the technique and was commissioned by a wide range of British clients in design and advertising . She began exhibiting her personal work in London and France and while traveling in Spain, began her ongoing Spanish Landscape series. She also taught as an visiting artist throughout the UK, and gave conferences on the historical and contemporary aspects of the technique. In 1989, she was commissioned by various clients in Madrid and Barcelona and in 1991, moved to Madrid., where she is cirrently living. She began her series, Greek mythology, inspired by the ancient mythological statues while traveling in Greece, and Pompei, Italy.

Original Gum Bichromate print on Rives BFK paper, from an original black and white solarized negative

Paris in the Rain, Original Gum Bichromate and Cyanotype Print on handmade paper

I participated with 10 other photographers from Spain, Poland, Germany, France, Hungary and Czech Republic in an exhibition titled Seeing Yourself, and this opened at the National Museum of Photography near Budapest in January 2010.

Original Gum Bichromate and Cyanotype Print

Sample of my original print, Castle, Budapest printed on linen fabric for upholstry and curtains

Drago, Tenerife, 2001, from the Spanish landscape series

The Gum Bichromate process was one of the only colour processes in use before the advent of color photography, and Alphonse Potevin, a French chemist and inventor is credited with the actual invention of the process in 1859.
But it was Robert Demanchy, a Parisian painter and photographer who became the leading exponent and most well known gum printer of all time. He exhibited throughtout Europe and generated interest in the process in America and Europe.
His work was widely published and although his beautiful prints are an inspiration to many contemporary gum printers, his painterly colour manipulations brought much criticism from the advocates of traditional photography.
Because of the visual similiarities to the tradional fine arts of the time, such as Impressionism, his work was often labeled Pictoral or Photo Sucessionist.

The Gum Bichromate process is a contact printing process, in which a large internegative is made from the original black and white negative. This enlarged internegative is then placed on top of sensitized printmaking paper, in my case Rives BFK, that has been previously coated with mixture of gum arabic, amnomium bichromate and watercolour, which is the emulsion that renders the paper light sensitive. When exposed to natural light,the tones of the internegative are printed onto the paper and the unexposed areas are washed away in development in water. A wide range of colours can be applied in separate layers, and the finished prints are archival and will not fade, and each print is an original. The random brushmarks surrounding the edges of the negative form part of the final image, giving a painterly quality to the finished print.

From the Spanish landscape series, Lost in La Mancha, Original gum bichromate print made from a solarized negative

Large scale murals printed on muslin of 4 different pasta still life photographs, printed as wallpaper, and integrating with the interior design of the Italian restaurant chain, Pasta Fiore in Barcelona.

Original photography, 2 still life images of grapes and wine glasses, for wine labels

Cover for the Quarterly Finacial report of AB Asosores, Madrid, using the theme of nature and the four seasons...,,,spring, summer, fall, winter

3 colour versions of the same image, of grapes, for La Gamella restaurant

\Detail, first version, Still Life of Grapes, La Gamella restaurant, Madrid

Christmas Cocktail, published in American Express magazine