Mercredi 01 Avril 2015 17:31:00 par Clarisse Treilles dans Expositions

© Patrick Pound

Cast adrift from their original creator and context, the photographs in Patrick Pound’s artworks find new life and meaning in his hands. In Small world he brings together an idiosyncratic collection of images to create a meditation, not only on the tricky nature of photography and reality, but also of humans and our place in the world.

Pound’s practice is not concerned with photographic mannerism, rather he is “really straight and methodical about things, because it’s a sentimental process already and an expressive form, so you really don’t have to say anything. When it comes to painting, everyone can recognise someone who possesses that lightness of touch with a brush, like Édouard Manet or someone. I like the idea that in conceptual art you can show a lightness of touch like that as well. You can be thorough and saturated, yet light.”

© Jane Brown

Jane Brown’s beautiful and ambiguous photographic work appears to originate from a different era but simultaneously depicts contemporary subject matter. The meticulous process that Brown employs and the careful presentation of her hand-printed, black and white works, places them in a liminal realm between being images and objects.

The title of her latest series Black Ships suggests the idea of a Western perspective on Japan. ‘Black Ships’, was an idiom used by the Japanese for Western vessels approaching their shores and dates from the 16th century when the hulls of Portuguese vessels were painted black with pitch. The term became a symbol of the end of Japan’s isolationist policies and the modernisation that ultimately ensued.