The bridge gathers

The bridge gathers

Auckland based, UK born artist, Helen Clegg (b. 1988), recipient of the NZAAT Emerging Artist Award in early 2013, is set to open her second solo exhibition The bridge gathers, (2014) as part of the Auckland Festival of Photography.

'The bridge gathers' Helen Clegg 2013
Giclée print on archival paper from 120 positive film 700mmx700mm

Auckland Festival of Photography Fringe Festival Night - 3rd June 2014

Alongside Clegg's exhibition in the gallery which runs from April 29th - May 20th, we have a unique experience to offer for our visitors and fringe festival goers for one night only - 3rd June 2014. The box throughout Clegg's series will be situated in the LOT23 Studio, and the audience invited to explore the set and participate in the scene. They'll be able to interact with the box and take their own photograph, as Clegg does. These images will be broadcast into the gallery via live feed and available online to download, tag and share. It will undoubtedly be a very fun and engaging evening.

Speaking about the interactive component to the opening, Clegg describes “I like to experiment and be playful with my work - photography can be so engaging when it’s embraced in different forms, that’s why it was so important to add another element to the exhibition, this way the audience can engage with the work on another level.”

"LOT23 is committed to providing space and support for emerging artists. Multi-media equipment, staging, theatrical and interactive installation, and event production are on offer to all artists at LOT23 to fully enable and inspire their vision. Collaboration and enquiry is at the heart of all our projects. We're passionate about connecting people, and producing creative events and experiences. " says curator Natalie Tozer.

Helen Clegg and The bridge gathers is featured on D-Photo. Click HERE to read.

Helen Clegg’s practice both draws on, and challenges traditional parameters of performance, self-portraiture, and landscape photography. Acting as both artist and subject, Clegg’s unique process involves using medium format photography to capture her own eloquently posed form in composition with the surrounding landscape. In each image, she reveals a distinct acknowledgment of her audience by deliberately exposing the black cable release with which she captures her gestural scenes.

Whilst traditionally the performance art movement of the 1960’s refers to a live event. Clegg’s practice emphasises the construction of a performed momentary gesture, staged expressly for the camera. Occupying a space between performance and theatricality, Clegg’s images maintain an intuitive nature. In the absence of an immediate audience, Clegg’s employs her process of medium format photography, to both freeze and extend a moment in time in an anti-immediate translation of performance.

By nature, “photography confronts the externality of the world when trying to realise the internality of the artist” - Roger Ballen, 2013. In photographic terms, Clegg’s images borrow from both portraiture and landscape, but embody neither genre fully. Instead, Clegg engages the landscape as not just a theatrical stage but as her equal counterpart within the image. Clegg’s large-scale print series offer the illusion of spatial envelopment, allowing the viewer an immersive, fragmented insight into her carefully composed environments.

ends

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