Held in The Viewfinder Photography Gallery in Brixton, Constructs, Spectacle and Self is a group exhibition by London-based photographers Kerry Clark, Kelly Brown and Catlin Harrison. Running until 13 February, the exhibition features new work by the trio, including Harrison’s self-portraits created using a flatbed scanner, Clark’s photographs made using Victorian photographic processes, and Brown’s images of herself posing “as a range of real and imagined historical ancestors”. The Viewfinder Gallery is located inside Brixton Village Market, 52 Brixton Village, London.

Press Release

The Viewfinder Photography Gallery in Brixton proudly presents Constructs, Spectacle and Self, a group exhibition by London based photographers Kerry Clark, Kelly Brown and Catlin Harrison. The work featured in this exhibition uses the self-portrait as a means to explore gender, with a gaze on historic and contemporary references to women. 

Exhibition Dates: 13 January – 13 February 2011-01-16
Reception: 20 January 2011, 6-8pm (open to public)
Exhibiting photographers: Kelly Brown, Catlin Harrison and Kerry Clark

The exhibition features new work by three photographers who are all interested in how women form identity through visual cues.
Catlin Harrison chose to forgo the camera, creating self-portraits using a flatbed scanner.  Harrison speaking about her project: “One strand of imagery that was percolating in my brain before making this “Self-Image” series was old master portrait painting and the use of light, clothes and texture to signify status. The immense detail in the folds of cloth, jewellery and luxury objects is the meticulous artifice that precursors today’s high definition seduction.”

Kelly Brown photographs herself as a range of real and imagined historical ancestors,a nod to the national obsession with family history. Brown on her process: “I am discovering and developing my identity through self-photography, following the methodology of interacting with real or imagined female ancestors, creating costumes and dresses that I wear and creating images of self-photography/self-portraits.”

Kerry Clark uses Victorian photographic processes to explore the modern fascination with reality TV and ‘true life’ magazines.  Clark says, “For me, photography is a tool to reconstruct reality, to re-invent myself, my surroundings and re-evaluate and understand my thinking. I want to make art that explores the self; my identity and in doing so ask others to understand theirs.”

Kathleen Brey, curator at the Viewfinder Gallery, said “Kelly Brown, Kerry Clark and Catlin Harrison are photographers working with the most personal of subjects - themselves, and how they see themselves in the world. Emphasising the spectacle of self, Harrison, Clark and Brown place distance between the subject and the viewer. The artists looked at historical sources (ancestors, old masters, 19th century photographic processes) in the hopes of finding themselves in the present. The resulting photographs by each artist have a performative quality. Clark, Harrison and Brown use photography to portray one’s ongoing soul-search, playing with how we construct our own identities.”

For further information or image requests please contact Kathleen Brey: [email protected]
www.viewfinder.org.uk/exhibitions

The Viewfinder Photography Gallery showcases project-based work by emerging and established photographers.  The Viewfinder is a registered charity number 1135482.
 
Catlin Harrison
Kelly Brown
Kerry Clark

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Photo: Kelly Brown

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