This series, which features the Cyanotype photographic printing process, explores the variance between light and dark in “Organic Shadows.” These prints embody arrangements of organic materials collected from the Illinois prairie landscape, then positioned with purpose and developed by the sun’s ultraviolet light.

The project began as a simple task of choosing the prairie plants for their beauty from the native landscape.

After further exploration, I wanted to highlight the importance of restoration of the native prairie at Fermilab. I became interested in the science of recording native and non-native plants for Fermilab’s prairie quadrant study. And suddenly, a convergence between science and art was created as I interpreted the natural landscape in my artwork. I hope to not only utilize art to highlight the beauty of the natural world, but use my artwork as a visualization of the quadrant studies done at Fermilab National Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois to reestablish the native landscape. The data collected during these quadrant studies aims to better understand and conserve the ecology of the Illinois prairie landscape. Restoration is important in the conservation process, and my work highlights this through the bleached brown cyanotypes, which are stained with tannic acid to illustrate non-native species.

These “Organic Shadows” are grown in the Illinois prairie and transformed by the scientific process of cyanotype and creativity.