'Chladni Figure'

'Chladni Figure', gelatin-silver print photograms by Susan Derges, 1985. Museum no. E.2816-1990

Ernst Chladni was an 18th-century physicist who researched the visualisation of sound waves. He discovered that fine sand on a square metal plate formed geometrical patterns when a violin bow was vibrated across the edge of the plate. Derges made these images in a similar fashion, but with carborundum powder on photographic paper to produce photograms.

'River Taw (Ice), 4 February 1997'

Susan Derges, 'River Taw (Ice), gelatin-silver print photogram by Susan Derges, 4 February 1997', 1997. Collection of the artist.

'Vessel No.3 (1)'

'Vessel No.3 (1)', dye destruction print photograms by Susan Derges, 1995. National Media Museum, Bradford

For this series Derges used a toadspawn-filled jam jar as a three-dimensionaltransparency. She placed the jar above an enlarging lens in the darkroom and used flashlight to make an exposure. The first image shows loops of well-ordered spawn, while the final one shows an empty jar from which we presume the last toad has just hopped into adulthood.

'Vessel No.3 (9)'

'Vessel No.3 (9)', dye destruction print photograms by Susan Derges, 1995. National Media Museum, Bradford

For this series Derges used a toadspawn-filled jam jar as a three-dimensional transparency. She placed the jar above an enlarging lens in the darkroom and used flashlight to make an exposure. The first image shows loops of well-ordered spawn, while the final one shows an empty jar from which we presume the last toad has just hopped into adulthood.

'Eden 5'

'Eden 5', dye destruction print photogram by Susan Derges, 2004. Museum no. E.445-2010

This work was made as part of a residency at the Eden Project in Cornwall. It concentrates in a single image the many different wave forms that Derges has examined over the years. Like other artists and philosophers, she is exploring the idea that natural patterns are the signs of deeply hidden affinities, visible signs that point to the invisible.

'Arch 4 (summer)'

'Arch 4 (summer)', digital C-print from dye destruction print photograms by Susan Derges, 2007/8. Collection of the artist.

'Working directly, without the camera,' says Derges, 'with just paper, subject matter and light, offers an opportunity to bridge the divide between self and other'.

In these dreamlike landscapes, she first made images of cloud by direct digital scans of ink dispersing in water within a small glass tank. She printed these scans onto large transparencies, then placed them beneath a glass tank containing water, bracken, grasses and reeds. Next she made direct prints onto dye destruction paper placed beneath both tank and transparency. Finally, she photographed these prints and digitally stitched them together to make the large-scale digital C-prints.