In 1990 the Voyager 1 space probe took a photo of Planet Earth, the photo was taken 6 billion kilometres away from Earth, the furtherest distance from which our home planet had ever been photographed. This photograph ‘Pale Blue Dot’ showed that Planet Earth, all its details, all that we hold dear and all that we can and cannot explain could be reduced to the size of a single pixel. Earth became almost imperceivable within the galaxy. The galaxy; a space far more great in scale and far more incomprehensible than Earth.   

This new exhibition by Dan Hermouet is named for this photograph, yet it presents a new representation of pale blue dots. These new images that magnify worlds within our world come into being through the combination of analog printing techniques. 

Dan’s pale blue dots are the inverse to the image taken in 1990, these artworks; establish themselves as a constellation of loss and amplification; the slow process, interplay of raw materials allowing certain qualities to be highlighted yet aspects of their broader story obscured through the abstraction of recognisable details. In these galaxies scratches, dust, the traces of the materials; how they combined and reacting together exist as planets and stars. Rather than reducing one world to one pixel, the minuscule is magnified. 

These artworks are the location that they emerge from, the water from the river outside the gallery, the snow that fell last winter and the plants of the neighbourhood have been carefully harvested, their pigments extracted and microscopic entities that live within weeds, seeds, roots, faded petals and ash are individually invited by Dan to interact with the cyanotype. 

The same outcome would not exist elsewhere just as the same outcome can only exist once. We see what they are and all the material, time, gesture and process that called them into being. 

Dan Hermouet (Nantes, France) is a visual artist based in Vilnius where he is a resident artist at the Uzupis Art Incubator. His practice explores and researches hand applied historical analog photographic processes in the digital age. During his residency Dan has been focusing on eco sensitive creative processes.  In 2021, he was awarded a scholarship by the Lithuanian Council of Culture to focus on researching pigments; the outcomes of this project have been developed further into the production of new artworks and shared during workshops held locally in Panevezys and Vilnius. Dan has exhibited in Lithuania, the Baltics, notably the exhibition ‘ego’ at the Rothko Museum, Daugavpils, Latvia as well as abroad. Dan is a member of the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artist Association. This year Dan is pursuing a residency art program at Užupio meno inkubatorius focusing on eco sensitive creative processes. He is currently working on a new natural and sustainable project alongside the national botanical garden for 2024. 

This project is proudly supported by Uzupis Art Incubator, Alt Lab and the Lithuanian Council of culture.