Ryan Gallery Artists: Platinum and Palladium

The North Gallery features hand-printed works by artists represented in Ryan Gallery at Art Intersection. The work on view ranges from photography with large format cameras and film negatives used by Dick Arentz, Imogen Cunningham, Randy Efros, Rondal Patridge, and Terry Towery, to more contemporary working practices from Ryuijie and Scott T. Baxter using digital negatives from film, and Michael T. Puff’s digitally composited imagery.

All of the artists, no matter their shooting method, mix and hand-coat their light sensitive platinum and palladium chemistry onto papers of their choice, directly contact print their negatives onto this coated paper, and process their prints in darkrooms. This process results in one-of-a-kind, extremely archival final print, with an unmatched tonal range.

To see more work and collections from each of these artists presented here, please visit Ryan Gallery, ryangallery.com, or schedule a private viewing of the work.

Dick Arentz, Keystone, W.V.A

About Platinum and Palladium

The platinum printing process, invented in 1873 by William Willis, depends on the light sensitivity of iron salts to produce an image.

Prints are made by first exposing the light sensitive chemistry to an ultraviolet light source, such as the sun, and once in the developing chemistry the image appears instantaneously and where the iron salts are replaced with platinum or palladium in the final print.

Many present practitioners use a combination of platinum and palladium for a single print.  When used alone, platinum prints have a tonal range that is generally considered cooler than palladium prints. Whether used alone or together, platinum/palladium prints are highly valued for their great range of subtle tonal variations, producing deep rich shadows and detail filled highlights with a great degree of permanence.

Michael T. Puff, Young Dancer

Scott T. Baxter, William Faulk, Denton, Montana