Almudena Romero the image as a living process

Born in Madrid and living in London, Romero has developed a profound understanding of 19th-century photographic processes and transformed them into an artistic quest to push the boundaries of traditional photography. Relying on natural development processes, such as photosynthesis and photo-periodicity, the artist creates works that evolve over time, revealing ever-changing images. His vision conceives photography not only as "writing with light" (photo-graphos), but also as a performative process in which natural subjects become generative agents. Inspired by early experiments in color photography, Romero reinterprets these researches in a radically innovative way. "My practice has evolved: initially I studied plants, now I consider them artists, performers and my peers," the artist says.

The title The Pigment Change is taken from the series of the same name begun in 2020 and developed into three chapters: The Act of Producing, Family Album and Faire Une Photographie, in which the artist interweaves art and natural phenomena, in a dialogue between light and image.
The Act of Producing questions the meaning of the word "production" in the contemporary, as a creative act that the artist traces on the world and the environment. Using plant cellulose negatives applied directly to leaves, the artist exploits the bleaching action of light: pigments unprotected by the negative are gradually destroyed, resulting in delicate and fleeting images. The artist often imprints her own hands on the leaves, in the gestural acts of experimentation, cropping and intervention.

Excerpted from the press release edited by Anna Vittoria Magagna, Editorial Director That's Contemporary

During our conversation, a great sensitivity to the natural world emerged, but also a sincere curiosity in conveying to the public not only the aesthetics of his work, but also the depth of his creative process. Romero's images are not mere representations: they are invitations to rethink our connection with a fragile environment and, at the same time, they tell of her personal reflection on the meaning of the interaction between man, art and nature.Entering Almudena's work is an opportunity to understand how her art, which began in photography, is shaped as a broader research on matter, nature and our relationship with the environment.

The origins of Almudena Romero's visual research are rooted in her personal experiences and early technical explorations of photography, both of which have shaped her creative journey. Her passion for this medium was born in her teens, when, in Madrid, she began documenting her reality with an analog camera lent to her by her father. "Photographs were a way for me to tell the story of the freedom of those years," she says, reflecting on the atmosphere of Madrid in the 1980s, marked by a vibrant youth culture and an era of social change.

After studying photography in Toulouse, her career as a commercial photographer led her to confront the contradictions inherent in the field. "It struck me how photography was used to construct moments to document, rather than to tell something deeper," she explains. Her experience in the world of commercial photography led her to reflect on the meaning of photography as a tool for self-representation and the repetitiveness of visual rituals imposed by the industry. It is this confrontation with the standardization of photography that prompted her to seek a freer and more personal expression of the medium. She thus decided to pursue a more radical academic path, which led her to study fine art photography in the United Kingdom, where she obtained an MA in Fine Art Photography in London.

Here her research focused on photography as language and its materiality. It was during this period that Almudena developed a particular fascination with the origins of photography, becoming an expert on 19th-century photographic techniques. Her interest in the use of wet collodion and early photographic experiments led her to a new understanding of the medium as a process and as a means of expression, far from commercial logic. Her curiosity about photography is never limited to the final image, but extends to the roots of the medium itself: a medium capable of constructing and transforming reality, not just representing it. His theoretical and practical research in the field of historical photography has become a fundamental starting point for his artistic journey, thus combining experimentation with a deep reflection on the materiality and meaning of the photographic medium.

Her grandmother's garden in Valencia was Almudena's first workshop, a place that had a great influence on her artistic practice and marked the beginning of her research path.

Growing up in a farming family, the artist was immersed from a young age in a close relationship with nature. Every vacation spent at her grandparents' country home and direct contact with the land helped shape her sensitivity to the environment, which would later become central to her work. She recalls how, during the holidays, her grandparents would give her fruit trees as gifts for her birthday; a symbolic act that linked personal growth to the natural environment.In this context, her approach to photography was also influenced by the work of her father, who documented Almudena's growth (and fruit trees) by photographing her alongside the plants. That family archive became a fundamental resource for the artist: the Family Album series reflects precisely on the meaning of these memories and their evanescence, questioning the role of photography as a mere documentary tool. Romero explores the concept of disappearance, not only in relation to family memories, but also to the environmental impact of the accumulation of waste and resources, highlighting the irreversibility of loss and transformation in our society.

In 2021, she presented her work at Les Rencontres d'Arles, one of the most prestigious events in contemporary photography. Here, Almudena had the opportunity to introduce the audience to her material approach of the photographic medium, exploring not only the final image, but also the process through which photography interacts with objects, light, and chemicals.

Almudena Romero's work is a cross between art and science: using carefully selected plants and leaves as photographic paper, the artist explores the possibility of obtaining natural images through the changing pigments of leaves exposed to light. This experimental process reflects the natural transformation of plants and is used by Almudena to create works that document and participate in the life cycle of plants.

His process is divided into several series, each exploring a different aspect of his research: in Faire une photographie, the artist exposes plants to specific amounts of light in spring and fall to cause the change in leaf pigments. The result is a natural print that reveals the plants' chemical responses to light, recording this process through the action of the sun bleaching chlorophyll pigments.The act of producing extends this research, using leaves exposed to strong UV radiation, which causes a change in pigments from the green of chlorophyll to the yellow of carotenoids. This treatment reveals detailed images of the artist's hands as she works with plants, creating a reflection on the act of production and the often invisible labor that accompanies creation.

In the aforementioned Family album series, Almudena takes her research to a more personal level, displaying negatives from her family archives directly on watercress panels, thus making the photographs "grow." In this chapter, plants are not only the medium, but also become the subject of the work, creating an interaction between memory and nature.Finally, Offsprings explores the reproductive strategies of plants as a metaphor for motherhood and growth, highlighting how the ecological crisis increasingly affects the choice to have children in contemporary society. A 30-day time lapse documents the birth of a new leaf, a symbol of an ever-changing future.

Almudena Romero's experiments and vision are collected in the book The Pigment Change, a volume that is divided into four sections, corresponding to the chapters of her work - The Act of Producing, Family Album, Offspring and Faire une photographie - each of which explores a different aspect of her practice, interweaving research on photography with reflections on sustainability, legacy and motherhood.

In particular, the first chapter, The Act of Producing, reflects on the impact of art production in the context of the climate crisis. Almudena explores the role of artists within an extractive economy, questioning the ethics of producing art in a world facing a severe ecological emergency. Her photographs and reflections invite a rethinking of the value of art production, questioning incessant consumption and resource extraction.

The Pigment Change is thus much more than a photographic collection: it is a project that interweaves research, art, and ecological engagement, offering a reflection on change, sustainability, and memory. Each chapter becomes a point of observation on our relationship with nature and the ethical implications of artistic production. Almudena Romero's work challenges the conventions of stability and permanence, transforming the image into a living process in dialogue with time and the environment. In a world marked by ecological emergency, her works do not simply represent reality, but question it, inviting a rethinking of the role of art in a fragile and ever-changing balance.