Constructs, Spectacle and Self

The Viewfinder Photography Gallery proudly presents “Constructs, Spectacle and Self”, a group exhibition of photographic projects by Kerry Clark, Kelly Brown and Catlin Harrison. The work featured in this exhibition explores identity and gender roles, with a gaze on historic and contemporary references to women.

“Constructs, Spectacle and Self” artists on their process:

Catlin Harrison: “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, jewelery and luxury objects is the meticulous artifice that precursors today's high definition seduction.”

Kelly Brown: “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: “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.”

© Catlin Harrison

© Kelly Brown

© Kerry Clark

Viewfinder curator Kathleen Brey says, "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.”