Luxembourg Gardens, Paris- Gum bichromate on Rives BFK

Drago, Tenerife, 2001, from the Spanish landscape series

The Secret Garden, Ibiza 2014 from the Spanish Landscape series

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 developed her unique style  using the gum bichromate technique in  both her personal and commercial commissions and worked for  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, which she has exhibited throughout Spain. She also took part in the UK  visiting artist program, and gave conferences and   workshops  on the historical and contemporary aspects throughout Britian. In 1989, she was commissioned by various  architects and  product designers in Madrid and Barcelona to collaborate on different  projects in the food and editorial  sector and in 1991, moved to Madrid, where she is currently living.
 She began her series, Greek mythology in 1994, inspired by the ancient mythological statues while traveling in Greece, and Pompei, Italy.

Greek God, Delphi 2016 from the Fragments series

                                      

Original Gum Bichromate and Cyanotype Print

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

Publications/Interviews
Illustrated London News
Design Week, London
Creative Review, London
Design and Art Direction, London
La Fotografia, Barcelona
Experimenta Design Journal, Madrid
On Diseño Architectural Quarterly, Barcelona
El Pais
British Journal of Photography
Santillana Editorial
Penguin  Books

"Selected Works" 1986-2013, at el Almacen del Pan a new art space in Madrid

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.

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.

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.