Beatrice Thornton

Beatrice is an Oakland-based archivist, design historian, and land artist whose primary medium is black and white film photography. Since returning to her home state from New York, she has been building an art practice centered around analog photographic processes.

Beatrice develops film and prints in her home darkroom, mixing her own developers using ingredients that include foraged plants and low toxicity household ingredients in place of traditional darkroom chemicals. She is part of a larger movement of analog photographers following sustainable darkroom methods. Beatrice’s evolving photographic style mainly depicts her local landscape, often through in-camera double exposures.

She sees developing with plants as a circular process where the images she produces are as much about the final objects as about process. Beatrice’s work is a continual practice of learning about photography, and about plants, all of which re-reconnects her to the land she grew up on.

Beatrice holds a BA in art history and French from New York University and took darkroom courses at Parsons School of Design and NYU. She received an MA in decorative arts, design history, and material culture from Bard Graduate Center, and a certificate in archives and records management from Long Island University.