ARTIST: Ellen Ziegler
TITLE: Untitled
MATERIALS: Installation of drawings created using electrical phenomena
DIMENSIONS: 6' x 6' minimum
DATE: 2004-2005

DESCRIPTION
An installation of drawings done with a high-voltage electric stylus; additional imagery created on light-sensitive surfaces exposed to ultraviolet light. In both cases, images on paper are created by electrical phenomena.

The drawings are made using a stylus connected to a high-voltage generator burns lines of holes through paper or other thin material. Rapidly-firing sparks arc from the stylus through the material to a copper-surfaced table. The blueprints, or cyanotypes, are made on paper coated with ferric ammonium citrate and potassium ferricyanate - light-sensitive iron salts. This process predates black-and white photography, but cannot be used with an enlarger because of the very long exposure time. All images/objects/patterns are contact-printed on the paper's surface with ultraviolet light.

STATEMENT
Cyanotype:
"When I place objects on light-sensitive surfaces in the sun, I never know how the image will turn out. Or whether it will. Processing the materialswith a garden hose, I watch the objects appear as transformed ghosts. When I draw on the images with household chemicals or power tools, unexpected reactions occur. Chemistry is the emotion of matter. With these processes, form filters through the semi-permeable membrane of imagination."
Burned-hole drawings:
"Drawing with a high-voltage electrical stylus carries with it the risk of occasional electroshock therapy. Not all bad."

BIO
Ellen Ziegler is an artist working in Seattle, WA. Her work includes installations incorporating water as a subject and medium, large works on paper using an electric drawing tool and chemically altered light-sensitive media, and public artworks, among them fountains and water features.

CONTACT
Ellen Ziegler
4206 2nd Avenue NW
Seattle, WA 98107
206 784 8841
ez108 AT msn.com
www.ellenziegler.com