This print from Chasing Shadows is exhibiting in the 2014 Barbican Trust Open!
Chasing Shadows – steps
Curated by David Kefford and Paul Johnson, the exhibition features 30 artists selected from all over the UK.
For more information go to www.barbicanartsgrouptrust.co.uk
ArtWorks Open 2014: 7th to 16th of June 2014, 12-6pm every day
Private View: 6th of June 2014, from 6:30pm to 9:00pm
ArtWorks Project Space
114 Blackhorse Lane
E17 6AA
Chasing Shadows is a night journey, a peaceful sleepwalk through a silent world bereft of people. As the evening light transforms the everyday into a dreamlike state, familiar urban landscapes disappear underneath resilient vegetation.
For this series I used long exposures on 35mm black and white film to record the contemplative stillness of the night, the only movement in the wind blowing through leaves. I hand printed the images with lith developer on old fibre based paper to create single edition prints with a tactile quality and degraded aesthetic reminiscent of illustrative drawing or etching.
Winning a 2013 Islington Exhibits Artists Award, I was commissioned to rework the images into a large-scale projection installation. The projection paradoxically represents the frozen moments as transitory echoes of the original, each dissolving into the next in a slow, rhythmic loop.
Here is a lo-res version of the film for projection:
Documentation of the projection installation:
Chasing Shadows – large scale projection
To find out more about Chasing Shadows:
click here to find out about exhibitions or related work
or take a look at my website to see the full images (print and projection)
I’ve now got a profile on LensCulture!
LensCulture is one of the most authoritative resources for contemporary photography, committed to discovering and promoting the best of the global photography community.
Their online network of photographers, magazine, and blog showcase work of all genres from the world’s most cutting-edge photographers. There are some great photographers on there, with a very diverse and inspirational range of work.
Profiles are by invitation only so I’m really excited – and very grateful for the compliment!
You can find my profile here: www.lensculture.com/npicola where you can also see new work from the series ‘this table is sad because no one is sitting at it…’
this table is sad because no one is sitting at it… (winter swans in the Serpentine)
Here is my first test shot of Chasing Shadows rear-projected into a window space, so that it can be viewed by passers by from the street outside. Although very rough around the edges still, I especially like how the reflection of the lit window interacts with the piece, creating another (colourful, live) layer within the otherwise frozen monotone narrative.
Fingers crossed it’ll still work when I scale it up!
Chasing Shadows street level projection – test 01
This great article by The Mixed Reality Laboratory, Nottingham, UK was really helpful in working out suitable medium to project onto – I’d recommend it to anyone exploring with projection based installation.
The Maya Centre has invited Bekki Perriman and myself to exhibit our work as part of the launch of it’s new home in Islington!
The launch is on 19th September, with patrons Melissa Benn, and MP Jeremy Corbyn joining the celebrations.
The Maya Centre provides free long term counselling and psychological support to women who have experienced severe trauma through domestic violence, abuse in childhood or overseas in war and conflict. It is a not for profit specialist counselling service run by women, for women.
Bekki and I are both showing work related to our award winning exhibitions at Islington Exhibits 2013 – in my case it’s 5 of the original prints from the Chasing Shadows series.
Chasing Shadows – steps
To see more images from the series take a look at my website
The exhibition is available for viewing by appointment only, please contact me for more information.
Thanks to Rowan Arts and Islington Exhibits 2013 for giving me the opportunity; this installation is something I’d wanted to create for a long time.
Here are some documentary images, and some footage (without sound), and a record of viewer comments.
Chasing Shadows – time based installation – documentation 1
Chasing Shadows – time based installation – documentation 2
“Exquisitely, skilfully crafted photographs. I love the movement, the merging of one image and sense into another. You have a gift for finding such serene beauty in the easy to pass by scenes of everyday life.”
“I liked the rambling impact of nature against buildings. The urban mundanity and beauty, emphasised by plants, trees, shadows, walls, windows makes my senses dream.”
“It perfectly demonstrates how things are really out of our control.”
“Has a strangely compelling quality – the way the images move through a journey – and each time you look you find yourself drawn in further.”
“I love the way the prints almost pour into each other. It’s very hypnotic.”
“It is wonderful the way that very ordinary everyday things are transformed into something very mysterious.”
“I could feel the same dreamlike gaze that you must have had on your night walk. It took me back to memories of my own walks at night time – the larger than life plants, the dark leaves but bright flowers. For some reason I find the vegetation says more at night and that really came across through the texture and light and shade.”
I had a great time meeting people and seeing/hearing their responses, and I learned so much more about the work from those interactions. Thanks everyone!
To see the full series take a look at my website. If you’re interested exhibiting or buying my work please click here to get in touch.
If you want to find out more about Islington Exhibits 2013 take a look at this video
As well as commissioning my first solo show, Rowan Arts selected one of my photographs to use as the poster image for the whole Islington Exhibits festival! Here are some examples…
Placement on websites:
London Artists Quarter: http://www.londonsartistquarter.org/events/islington-exhibits-2013
Furtherfield: http://www.furtherfield.org/community/calendar/islington-exhibits-2013
I’m really pleased with how they used it for the programme’s; it’s so well designed.
Poster/postcard/cover image (design by Rowan Arts):
Chasing Shadows – shutters (Islington Exhibits 2013 programme cover image)
Programme insert (design by Rowan Arts):
Chasing Shadows – shutters (Islington Exhibits 2013 programme insert)
A really nice article by Islington Tribune/Camden Review about mine and Bekki Perriman‘s shows: http://www.camdenreview.com/art-diary-award-winners-are-street-ahead.
For more information on my exhibition click here.
Here’s another picture from the series
Chasing Shadows – wire window
For more information on Islington Exhibits 2013 click here
Islington Exhibits is produced by Rowan Arts with support from Cripplegate Foundation, Arts Council England and Islington Council.
From 15th-31st July 2013 Chasing Shadows will be shown as a large scale time based installation – a solo show as part of Islington Exhibits 2013. For more information on the exhibition click here.
The installation, in an otherwise uninhabited space, is a large scale single screen projection in which frozen moments are re-presented as transitory echoes of the original, each dissolving into the next in a slow, rhythmic loop.
This is a test of the projection at the point of near completion. The projection is lined up exactly onto an area of the wall painted white, which is what makes it stand out so vividly from its surroundings.
Chasing Shadows – shutters (test – time based installation)
The exhibition was commissioned as the winner of one of two Artists Awards. For more information on the Artists Awards click here.
The exhibition is open every day from 10am-6pm every day until 31st July, at Unit 38 The Studios, Hornsey Street, London N7 8GR. Information here.
For more information on the exhibitions all across Islington click here. There are also curated walks and events, including guided talks of the Award Winners show. For information click here.
Islington Exhibits is produced by Rowan Arts with support from Cripplegate Foundation, Arts Council England and Islington Council.
Last night was the private view of the exhibitions, and it was both a surreal and amazing experience!
More information, and photos etc, about the exhibitions to follow, but in the meantime here are some related articles:
Chasing Shadows – wisteria wall
njmaskrey 