True North explores the profound experience of light within the natural landscape. Made during a residency in rural Finland in January 2015 the darkest time of the year, when the sun is closest to the horizon these analog photographs capture a state of mind more than the specifics of a place.
Sprawling fields are blanketed with snow, obscuring the surroundings while also allowing small details to emerge from the frozen landscape. Responding to winter’s monotone palette, Marchand became acutely aware of the delicate play of light against the snow and sky, especially during the “blue” period of the day, lasting one hour at dawn and twilight. The overcast sky that month became a kind of photographic scrim, as she worked outside in temperatures ranging from 0 to -20 degrees. True North reflects meditative silence, the slow passage of time, and a heightened awareness of even the subtlest transitions in light and color. In this series, Marchand asks the simple question: “What happens when you pay attention?”
These photographs comprise single images that reveal snow laden horizon lines, as well as image groupings in an installation that mines the rhythm of language. Also known for her creative writing, Marchand’s photographic work and books often intertwine visual ideas with text. She looks to the natural world shifting horizon lines, fleeting weather patterns, and the moments when vertical objects punctuate the quiet landscape presenting them as pictorial sequences and visual sentences.
True North was exhibited as a solo show at Traywick Contemporary in California in 2018. Marchand’s book from the True North series, Nothing Will Ever Be the Same Again (Datz Press, 2019), traces the winter light from the windows of her studio, a century-old schoolhouse. [Official Website]
About Amanda Marchand
Amanda Marchand is a Canadian, New York-based photographer whose work focuses on the natural world with an experimental approach to photography. She has been recognized as a fellow at the Hermitage Artist Retreat, MacDowell Colony, and Headlands Center for the Arts. Recent honors include the 2024 LensCulture Awards, the 2023 Julia Margaret Cameron Photography Awards, The 2022 Silver List, Medium Photo Festival’s Second Sight Award in 2021, and Photo Lucida’s Critical Mass Top 50 in 2021. Marchand is represented by Traywick Contemporary and Rick Wester Fine Art. Her work has been reviewed in ARTnews, The Marginalian, LensCulture, Aint’ Bad Magazine, Fraction Magazine, among others, and is part of the collections of the Getty, the San Jose Museum of Art, the Glen MUHC Hospital, Stanford University Library, The New York Public Library, and the Cassilhaus Collection.
Her collaboration on Emily Dickinson with Leah Sobsey, This Earthen Door, was published by Datz Press in 2024. The work received the 2024 Lenscratch “Art & Science Award.” Upcoming exhibitions include Rick Wester Fine Art in New York and the Brandywine Museum of Art in Philadelphia, PA, opening in the spring of 2025.
