Muse No. 4 (Limited edition of 10) Photograph

Limited edition of 10 (plus 1 AP) monumental pinhole print on duratran transparency. With signed and numbered certificate of authenticity. The autochrome was the earliest commercially viable photographic process. It was invented in 1903 by the Lumiere brothers, the founders of colour photography and cinema, and unveiled at the Photo Club de Paris on June 10, 1907. Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen, the leaders of the American art-photography movement called the Photo-Secession, attended the event and began making Autochromes. Stieglitz, clearly delighted with the possibilities of the new medium, wrote in the London journal of Photography: ‘showing them [painters and art critics] the transparencies, one and all faces look positively paralysed, stunned…then enthusiasm, delighted, unbounded, breaks loose…all are amazed at the remarkable truthful colour rendering; the wonderful luminosity of the shadows…the endless range of grays [sic], the richness of the deep colours. In short, soon the world would be color-mad, and Lumiere will be responsible’. Inspired by the photographs of the Photo-Secession and using pinhole / autochrome photography, David has created photographic paintings with the atmosphere and luminosity of Lumiere autochromes plates. In the muse series, carefully selected models, interiors, antiques and directional lighting are combined to create timeless intimate studies of of muses. Muse being the classical inspiration for artists and the goddess who presides over the arts and the sciences; painting and photography. Works contain heavy colour saturation, chiaroscuro (the extreme contrast of light and shade) of classical paintings. The lack of focus and treatment of light creates subtle forms with soft, barely imperceptible transitions between colours and tones. Da Vinci described this as work "without lines or borders, in the manner of smoke or beyond the focus plane”. David likens this to the reflection given off by antique mirrors where the silvered backing has become corroded by age and patina having dulled the reflective quality of the mirror. This creates a distance between the viewer and the reflected plane, where the distance is occupied by time and history. Works are unedited from the original and imperfections from the pinhole process. Dust grit and tiny hairs that make their way past the pinhole aperture remain visible just as they would on the autochrome originals. Viewed close-up or under magnification, the dots of the autochrome / pinhole image become apparent, an effect often compared to french pointillist paintings in miniature. 
The intimate subject and small scale of each work gives them the uniqueness of antique miniature paintings. These historic qualities and luminosity allow the works to come alive when viewed in front of a light source.