A mixture of shellac in alcohol is applied to dye-sublimation printed photograph to render the top layer of the print amenable to tools and brushes. The thus released colour pigments allow the original photograph to be altered, expanded and transformed, carrying the ‚real‘ into the metaphorical. After drying, the shellac leaves a reflective high-gloss sheen, creating a visual depth for the eye.
At first sight the shapes seem indistinguishable, blurry. But beneath the sometimes glossy, sometimes cracked surfaces stories unravel, long lost memories come back to life. 
Eva-Maria Unglaube looks for the tender poetry in the paintscapes. The imagery is above all an expression of emotion, it is an attempt to approach the intangible without trying to hold onto it. 

Shellac Sublimation

There are always an infinite number of reasons to find oneself pleasant or hideous, clever or idiotic: so what decides the matter is never in the end the judgement of our eyes, but the condition of our souls. It is the inner mood that guides our gaze in its assessment of the face in the mirror and that projects the atmosphere of selfishness, sleaziness and furtiveness we locate in our features. Therefore, we don’t, when we are sad, ever really need a new set of clothes or a haircut. We require – to put it naively and grandly – to be looked at through the eyes of love, by someone whose generous assessment can rescue us from the depredations of self-hatred.

Selfies I took with an old camera phone with a cracked lense were used as base prints for further interventions with shellac and other solvents.

Sublimation Portraits (selection)

My last trip to the Atlantic coast of France in 2020 feels like it was another lifetime ago and still it is etched in my mind maybe because it was just like any summer holiday, kind of part of the universal Idea of it. 
We spent most of the days without a care in the world, skins warmed by the sun and minds calmed down by the view and the sound of the ocean. Time is standing still, there is sand glued to our feet, the smell of sunscreen and melted ice-cream lingers in the air. 


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Eva-Maria Unglaube