Amanda Marchand | re: touch
June 17, 2026
Re: touch, the arithmetics of distance
Photographers work fastidiously to keep their slides and negatives clean and free of foreign particles. But here in Amanda Marchand’s experimental pieces, ink has been intentionally splotched right onto the surface of her processed slides. These particular inks are meant for photo retouching and are typically used to hide and perfect any dust spots on a final print. Marchand instead deploys these pigments to invade the holy film surface, releasing control of the outcome in an act that runs playfully against their intended use. The project bucks the perfectionist rules of the medium, but the process still culminates in these handsome objects.
One of my favorite trends in contemporary photography today is the disruption of a print by the artist’s hand. It’s common to see work done on the print’s surface, using paint, stitching, or collage. What I find so fascinating in Marchand’s landscapes is that the intervention happened not on the print but on the surface of the film slides.
Perhaps this early fusion of the two mediums is why the inky forms feel so eerily integrated into the scenes. They become neither foreground nor background, but a subject living in between. It’s like Marchand has stumbled into a recipe for making two and a half dimensions. Visually, it’s not hard to imagine that the new forms have found their way into the original scenes. But they are absolute foreigners, coming down to see how they might fit on the landscapes of earth.
Placid skies are filled with wormholes and giant orbs. A rust-colored film sweeps across the land. The colors bleed into the snow, marking out individual trees (marking them for what? one wonders.) The hues dissolve and reappear like the colors in an oil slick; they are simultaneously translucent and rich with pigment, enticing, but not entirely safe.
The works can be read like abstractions, as forms to enjoy. Or, they can evoke something timely- large forces of change coming to the land as the climate warms, dark precipitation of new proportions, chemicals in the snow, the energy of the sea, roiling up beyond its normal boundaries.
Each discovery in the series feels distinct, not born from a formula, but rather formed by the freedom of play. Marchand seems to be collaborating with the materials, giving them guidance and then sitting back to see what they’ll do.
In one image, a lifeguard tower on a beach has been tipped over, as if by the force of the two large red circles descending from above. In what feels like a magic trick, Marchand turns an ink drop to the scale of a four-story building. Something so tiny, meant to be invisible, takes center stage.
-Lisa Woodward
You can see more of Amanda Marchand’s fascinating work here
Reach out to Traywick Contemporary for inquires