The myth of photographic reality

Cathy, 2010, oil on canvas, 60 x 60cm.

‘Cathy’ is a painting of a photograph. More accurately it is a painting of a cropped printout of a colour-adjusted scan of a faded colour photograph taken around 30 years ago. In this work I set out to explore the myth of photographic truth. Patrick Heron said[i], “The primary purpose of art is that it determines, or dictates, what we see.”

In the linked text I argue that in representing the conventions of the photographic image in a painting, the viewer can see photographic realism as a style, that whilst so dominant that it appears natural, is in fact as artifical and arbitary as any other representational convention.

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[i] BBC documentary ‘Henry Moore: Carving a Reputation’, 1998

Flick

 2011, Oil on canvas, 100cm x 100cm

Flick is a study of a still from a feature film (La Double Vie de Veronique). At twenty-five frames a second, each image is bracketed by blackness and only fleetingly lingers on our retinas. The fleeting moment is paused and becomes meditative and takes on a narrative that is different from the original narrative of the movie. Influenced by the 2007 Hayward Gallery show (London, UK) 'The Painting of Modern Life' and by the work of Wilhelm Sasnal, Johannes Kahrs and Judith Eisler in particular.

I'm not trying to imitate a photograph

Cathy, 2010, Oil on canvas, 60cm x 60cm.

Painting of a cropped print-out of a scan of a faded colour photograph. Influenced by Gerhard Richter who said, "I'm not trying to imitate a photograph; I'm trying to make one.

Toxicbaby

2010, Oil on canvas, 98cm x 121.5cm.

I am interested in the images we present to our children through their toys and how this may vary within societies and cultures. This painting is of a plastic doll seen in a street fair in Cuba.

21st Century Pox

2011, Oil on canvas, shopping trolley,  canvas 80cm x100cm, assemblage dimensions variable

The ubiquity of brand logos in our environment today can be seen as a form of epidemic (dictionary definition: ‘affecting or tending to affect a disproportionately large number of individuals within a population, community, or region at the same time’).
The work references Ed Ruscha’s work Large Trademark with Eight Spotlights (1962)  depicting the 20th Century Fox logo.