Catriona Gray

I'm Catriona Gray. I'm an experimental photographic artist from London. I use cameraless processes, working around themes of surface destruction and repair. I use pavement weeds as my subject matter - the nuisance ones, the tough ones, the quietly toxic or healing ones. I use plant matter for their beautiful outlines but also to physically react with the film's surface, as well as creating eco-friendly photographic developers out of plants.

 

My processes are all very very slow, sometimes requiring soaking or burying for weeks or months. Stitching onto the surface of my images has also been a slow process I've begun to enjoy and it allows me to think about repair, surface, texture and shape while I sew.

 

I've been using alternative processes and instinctively destroying things since the late 90s, when I did my degree at Glasgow School of Art.

​

I was then a professional black and white darkroom printer for several years. I lost my footing in photography when that industry crumbled during the digital revolution. I went traveling, lived in Ukraine teaching English for a couple of years. When I came back I worked in photography studios and as a commercial photographer for some years but never really felt it. Around 2014 I started designing and teaching my own alternative photography workshops.

 

I had my 2 children in 2017 and 2019 and it was when my daughter was about 3 that I really got my creativity back.