Victoria Blewer  
 
b i o    
 
Victoria Blewer left the chaos and the clutter of New York Cityin 1986 to devote herself full time to fine art photography in the quiet hills of Vermont. She works entirely with black and white films, and then she hand-colors the images. Her work has been featured in full-length photo essays in the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, Vermont Life, and Vermont Magazine.
 

"Victoria Blewer's small, elegiac hand-colored photo-graphs of landscapes rely on repetition, whether it's rows of trees beside a canal, rows of identical beach cottages, or the pickets in "The Frontier Beyond the Picket Fence," which is made up of four horizontals: tangy green grass, white fence, yellow field, blue sky. A simple and eloquent statement about borders and the taming of America's Great Plains, it reminded me of Isamu Noguchi's similar message, similarly spare, in his set design for Martha Graham's 'Appalachian Spring.'"

— Christine Temin
TheBostonGlobe
 

"Blewer's repertoire of classical compositions, tranquil hues and an astute intermingling of nostalgia for 'then' and the presence of 'now' is what gives these works their timelessness." "Several themes emerge in this exhibit: the sparse floral pieces; expansive mountain vistas; steeply converging lines of linear perspective; and conversely, broad horizons populated by small architectural details.

Blewer relies on just a few structural variations and keeps her pale blue, mauve, pink, misty green and flaxen yellow tonalities consistent throughout. Within these design parameters she creates colored photographs of exacting craftsmanship."

— Marc Awodey
SEVEN DAYS
 

TECHNIQUE:

Each of her prints is photographed with black and white film, (many with infrared black and white film), printed on a porous paper, and then toned for color and longevity. Next, she hand-colors the photograph with oil paints – light layers of paint are applied gently to the photograph until the color application is smooth and even.

This is a time-honored technique that photographers have used for over a century. Before the invention of color film, it was the only method of obtaining color photographs. The result is an image that is dream-like, elegiac, and (sometimes) surreal. Each photograph is an original print, colored individually by hand, and prepared in a limited edition of 40 prints.