Idle Idyll by Izzy Leach

Idle Idyll is a collection of cyanotypes, which combines hand bound sections with loose double sided prints. The work explores the limitations of our memory - particularly in relation to our adolescence - and asks questions about what and how we choose to remember.

For this book Izzy returned to the Scottish lochs and lakes where she spent the long summer days of her teenage years; here, her friends had swam away their younger days but as they grew into young adults, this carefree activity developed into a more complex means of socialising. Attempting to capture a sense of nostalgia by re-enacting the scenes of her younger years Izzy unexpectedly felt a quiet sense of loss as she began to confront her memories.

The photographs made were printed as cyanotypes. Choosing to use cotton, the prints - with their blotches and distortions - became an exploration into the limitations of memory as the natural imperfections reflected Izzy’s attempts to reimagine her own. These were then reprinted as risographs - in three colour blue - with a depth in tone and colour which takes them further away from their original aesthetic and into a dreamlike, distorted, yet alluring reenactment of the past.

The colour blue and the water we see in the images are also intertwined with the exploration of memory, in an accompanying text Maria Paradinas dwells on her own past and writes: There are many ways to compare memory to water. We’re carried on its slipstream. It has deceptive undercurrents and tricks of refraction. But mostly, the image it reflects is shifting. The places and images that are caught in our personal lore take on mythic qualities that transform them. Memory, intoxicated with desire, tells us about what we need things to represent, as opposed to how they are.

Sewn sections cased in three panel, wrap around cover, with double sided loose prints. 

26 pages
200 x 250 mm