A copy of a photograph taken over a century ago by Félix Thiollier, possibly of his daughter, Emma. As far as I can tell from the translation of the French Wikipedia page, he developed his own prints and sometimes altered them using acid, or by drawing over them with ink or gouache.

This was a chance to just experiment with creating light effects using loose brush strokes and rough scraping with a palette knife. The cheap canvas surface was good resistance for the sharp corner of the knife and at times it felt like I was channelling Timothy Spall.

The original photograph has an unreal beauty and it’s hard to know how to add to it with paint. In being documentary, photography sometimes has the trump card over painting in that this moment actually happened. There’s a power to that which no amount of paint handling can recreate.