Framing Brutal Art - Floating frames

Update 3 April

Brutalism, as an architectural movement has come and gone (remember those grand concrete buildings of the 1990's?), but it might offer a solution to a framing problem i have been having with my waterfall pictures.  Simply, ordinary frames dont match my compositions - my falls are of rock and broken ground, and do not look good gentrified behind glass. To add to the problems, they are odd shapes and do not fit ready made items.

So, i spoke to a couple of people who i trust, and  here is the advice i received.
1. don't bottle up the water in frame edging. Let it drip off the edge of the image.
2. Look around. Choose something that resonates with the composition.
3. Dont be frightened to do something different.

I choose a raw wood floating frame, with visible chisel marks and exposed (rusty) nail heads.

1. i nailed a simple frame of DAR leaving 2cm free around each edge and (light) back board. There is nothing nice about the frame - all the workings are exposed, like the fall.

 

2. i cut a light wood support for the photo and then glued the photo to the support using acid free spay adhesive. I cut the support free hand, leaving errors in place. (if you want something less brutal, cut square a fraction under the size of the photo and when attached  - trim and meld photo edge in with a safe wood sealant. Here, checking photo for fit before adhering to support.

3. i cut lifts and inserted a black card into the back recess of the frame. I glued the lifts in place and then glued the photo support into place.

 

Too brutal?

I have framed a much larger version of this print to test the scalability of the frame. There are a couple of significant differences here - particularly wieght (4 times as heavy) and visual impact. While i increased the 'margins' sightly the separation of image and frame is not as great (suggesting a longside:margin ration of 20:1 might give better visual separation). Because of the size, i fore-went some of the brutal features in favor of greater structural support (i kept the nails but set the back into the frame rather than outside it.

This photo print is double the size of the first.

Too explore this a little further, i have printed 2 new images with a 8 by 10 ratio, and have create a 'tight frame. i will progressively trim the images until they fit

 

Here both images have been seated in the frame, ready to be trimmed. For test purposes, i then trimmed each frame until i arrived at a point i was happy with

 

Here the final dimensions were 50cm by 40cm (20" by 16") for the photo and gap around the photo is 2cm (3/4"). The longside:margin ratio of 20:7.5 is still smaller than i thought i would get to. Perhaps the visual impact has more to the longside/short side ratio of the original work.