John Bladen Bentley: Archival-Prints Charming

John Bladen Bentley is a contemporary master of the colour carbon transfer print, a nineteenth-century photographic process using gelatin and coloured pigment. The technique eventually evolved into the high-end colour reproduction system known as the dye-transfer process, which was used by influential colour photographers such as the American artist William Eggleston. With dye-transfer now a relic of the past and its chemical supplies discontinued by Kodak, Bentley turns to carbon transfer as a technique for delivering the ultimate in colour fidelity.

Bentley’s colour fidelity elevates the mundane into the monumental. In this exhibition of large-format prints, which represent a decade of research and development into the process, he shows images taken from travels in Mexico. With their provisional, off-centre compositions, they represent instances of finding colour that are almost independent of subject matter. Because of the archival stability of the process, these photographically captured moments of colour should rival the lifespan of paintings. (120 Scollard St, Toronto ON)