Stephanie Frondoso

Lives and works in Makati, Metro Manila, Philippines

Artist statement

The Philippines is experiencing "the longest lockdown in the world", as the very last country for all levels of education to return to face-to-face learning. At the start of the pandemic, I planted grew an edible garden at home to minimize trips to crowded places like the market. After almost 2 years of being in lockdown, I started exploring the plants in my garden as sources of art materials. Thus began my exploration of anthotypes, chlorophyll prints and lumens. There is very little available research on these processes--I have found only 2 books and largely made experiments through trial and error. For the anthotypes, I created homemade emulsions made of onion skins, avocado seeds, serpentina leaves, but mostly from the blue ternatae flowers that grow abundantly in my garden and produce very strong color. After creating over 50 anthotypes, I installed them on the bamboo trellis of my vegetable patch and called it "Makeshift Museum of Anthotypes", which i displayed for 30 minutes only. Anthotypes exposed to sunlight will continue to fade. I called it a museum rather than a gallery because these anthotypes are not for sale. I have been using them purely for experimentation, as a way to continue exercising creative expression throughout lockdown. The chlorophyll prints follow a similar natural process: leaves with selected images for printing are exposed under the sun until the leaves change color, leaving the image imprinted. The images that I selected are from...

Artwork