text - Impressions de Lumière - from an artist in residency at Chateau de Blacons, France - 2007 © Lloyd Godman

The residency at the Chateau allowed me to combine several areas of my previous work into one multi faceted exhibition. All the work is a continuation of my exploration into light, plants and the magical process of photosynthesis.

Carbon Obscura II: Light is a powerful force that penetrates the smallest pinhole. In a darkened space a series of thousands of pinholes draw the shapes were recognise as trees. These trees are frame works, trunks, branches, twigs yet they are without leaves the element which through the action of light converts carbon in the atmosphere to stored carbon. See the construction and installation of the work.

LEAF impressions: On the grass outside are photosynthetic “foot prints”. Giant leaf shapes that lead to the Carbon Obscura enclosure. While they reference the missing leaves of the trees inside they also relate to the 2 huge trees at either end of the garden. It is unclear what lay on the grass and how these were created. See the construction and installation of the work.

Green Room: A room of green light. All other colours are excluded. As a colour, green has the widest distinguishable range of colours. Although of medium brightness, green is the most viable of colours to the human eye. - at low light levels of illumination, we can see better by green light than any other wavelength. Projections of leaf shapes interact and play across the surface. This is the green room which is our planet. See the construction and installation of the work.

Leaf prints: In the gallery on the left, are a series of cyanotype prints. The liquid photosensitive emulsion is deliberately painted to break the rectangular conventions of the photograph we normally associate it with. In contrast, the painted marks form the bold shapes of leaves, while exposed into this is a layer of intricate shapes, patterns and textures gathered from the garden at the Chateau. Beside this are more newspaper leaves used to form the photosynthetic images on the grass outside. Exposed into the newspaper by the action of the sun and light are a further set of marks. See the construction and installation of the work.

During June, July 2006 Tess and I stayed in Crest in the Drome Valley, France for several weeks with Helen.

Crest is known for its wonderful stone tower, which sits on the hill above the town.

As we were nearing the end of our stay we visited an exhibition at L'Arbre de Vie / Chateau de Blacons 26400 Mirabel-et-Blacons. On leaving the gallery I left my card with the director. A few days later he rang to invite me for an interview. Once a year the Chateau invite an environmental artist to come and work for several weeks in the grounds and the invitation was extended to me for 2007.

The Chateau, the grounds and the surrounding environment are all very beautiful, so I saw this as a wonderful opportunity to experiment with new work in a very different environment.

	View from my room looking onto the Chateau.
In Nov 2007, I managed to make contact with Tim Otto Rath once again - he had a look at the carbon works and suggested I look at the light works of Otto Piene Lichtkubus 2001, Lichtkubus Nr. 1, 2 & 3