26 Photographs Of A House

The Great Living Room with open timber roof

A year after winning the Waikato Contemporary Art Award in 2006, Ann Shelton is returning to the region to exhibit her work, 26 photographs of a house This work was developed alongside her award winning work, A Library to Scale, part of, which was exhibited in the Waikato Museum of Art and History last year. For this new exhibition, Shelton has photographed " The Wilkinson Castle" in Taranaki.

Shelton has sourced historic black and white images taken by the architect of the home, James Walter Chapman-Taylor, and here represents them alongside her recent photographs of the same spaces in a series of 13 diptychs.

This new exhibition provides an opportunity to extend our knowledge of this leading artist's work. During the Govett Brewster artist in residency in 2005, Shelton developed several bodies of work around themes of place, history and narrative.

Crucial to this investigation is a questioning of absence, a re-examination and recognition of the variable accounts that are narrated in relation to place.

In her essay that accompanies the exhibition, Shelton says: "The Castle I have photographed is not really a Castle; however the myths that circulate around the Wilkinson house designed by well-known Arts and Crafts architect James Walter Chapman-Taylor would seem to situate it in the realm of a gothic tale.

Themes of the gothic, the English elite, and ludism are often associated with the Arts and Crafts Movement of which the Castle is a late and geographically removed example (the movement is usually sited as running from 1870-1920 and was primarily practiced in England and in America).

In what may seem like an awkward relationship or indeed an interesting contradiction the house references the quaint English cottage retreat while resonating with troupes of the gothic tale." All black and white images are the work of James Walter Chapman-Taylor.

The bulk of the black and white photographs are printed from the original glass plates held in the collection of Judy Siers. The remainder are courtesy of Auckland University Architecture Library.

LEDGE will contain new work by Stefanie Young, titled 'perfect specimen'.

Stefanie Young graduated from AUT in 1995 and gained her MFA with distinction from Pratt Institute, New York. Stefanie's practice sees her work exhibited in New Zealand and internationally. She currently lectures at the Waikato Institute of Technology in Hamilton.

Working across disciplines, her primary media are photography and painting with emphasis on issues of representation and perception.

LEDGE exhibition and preview dates run concurrently with RAMP Gallery.

ENDS

© Scoop Media