Joan Agajanian Quinn: I've known you a long time, will you tell our readers about yourself? 

Katerina Jebb: I was born in the United Kingdom in 1962. I have lived in Paris for about three decades. I discovered the medium of digital scanography in the early nineties, and it’s my primary vehicle for making artworks. I didn’t go to art school; thus, my way of making art is somewhat childlike and experimental. In the nineties, I used to lie myself down on a large format scanner and make self-portraits. I discovered that I could invite other people to lie down on the scanner and make life-size portraits. Each scan required seven minutes of the subject lying motionless, so I quickly understood that it was not an immediate outcome as I would make many scans to form a composition that pleased me.

I became aware that as well as studying living human subject matter, I could also make accurate reproductions of inanimate objects. These studies were cold and forensic in appearance, positioning them in direct conflict with the painterly aspect of the human portraits. This, in fact, illustrated a duality within the medium; the existence of two different languages expressed by the same machine. What still inspires me today is the possibility of reproducing an inanimate object which exists as evidence of a human’s attachment to materialism.

JAQ: What are your thoughts when you start a new piece?  

KJ: I try to be inventive; I try not to repeat myself or anyone else. I need to feel intrigued by my own subject matter. Obviously, I search for truth and meaning. 

JAQ: Why this medium? It's not common... 

KJ: It is the medium I have grown up with. There is a profound aspect to the visual which denies the immediacy of its making. There is a feeling of the subject drowning in himself. It is a physical interaction with the object viewing it with an invisible force. A metaphysical presence all around, which I always listen to. Scanographic artworks somehow imbue the object with a sense of otherness. The scanner is a moving trajectory that produces an image over time. In the medium of scanography, there is no split-second or decisive moment. The time elapsed to make a three-meter work could be considered the same amount of time as to make a painting.

Time is the most essential element that differentiates scanography from photography. It is a highly imaginative exercise that allows me to be spontaneously creative as I make the work on the spot, like painting. I build a composition.