Solitudo by Lydia Anne Stott.
Nottingham Trent University had a huge range of styles on show at Free Range.
I was most taken by Jonathan Marsh‘s large photograph Now Fades the Glimmering Landscape which seemed to signify a preoccupation with the decimation of our landscape, hospital an effect achieved by over laying faint imagery of road signs on top of a bleak and wild black and white landscape. Apologies for my bad photo – this was work probably best appreciated in the flesh.
Jonathan Marsh‘s bio declares an interest in ‘the impossibility of modern wilderness and the precarious position of modern democracy.’ Odd then that he also shoots for the Conservative party and the Royal Bank of Scotland. It’s possible to make large amounts of money taking photos for big corporations which can then be ploughed into more interesting personal projects, but this can present something of a dilemma. Where does one draw the line? There’s a certain irony in making money from a corporation like RBS that is hardly a bastion of environmental sustainability… to then draw attention to our foolish unsustainable human ways. Perhaps a more moral stance is needed, in which case it may not be possible to create that personal work in the first place. It’s an issue that many creatives struggle with, including myself, and I’m not sure I know the answer anymore. Beautiful photos nonetheless.
Gabrielle Brooks‘ Animalia caught my eye because for a moment her stuffed animals placed in a natural environment fooled me, until on closer inspection it became obvious that these animals were very much dead, leaving the feeling of a peculiar displacement between object and location. Unsettling.
Jodie Herbage showed an enigmatically beautiful series of girls roaming a rural mountain landscape, the use of projection in the exhibition giving her work an even more ethereal feel. These are photos that would sit well in magazines such as Ballad Of and Oh Comely.
With a similar feel Lydia Anne Stott created atonal dreamy landscapes in Solitudo, the inherent unreality of the photos used to emphasise the hazy memories of some kind of familiar yet distant folklore.
Kat Borvinko chose to display her late night Twilight Transparencies of urban landscapes against light boxes to great effect, the blurring haze around the lights flooding ever outward against the purple urban night sky.
Categories ,Animalia, ,Ballad Of, ,Conservatives, ,Free Range, ,Gabrielle Brooks, ,Graduate Shows, ,Jodie Herbage, ,Jonathan Marsh, ,Kat Borvinko, ,Lightboxes, ,Lydia Anne Stott, ,Nottingham Trent University, ,Now Fades the Glimmering Landscape, ,Oh Comely, ,photography, ,Royal Bank of Scotland, ,Solitudo, ,Twilight Transparencies
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