'under the skin'

A short essay on the digital work of sculptor Shelagh Cluett.incorporated into the catalogue text for 'La Cabinet de Curiosities de Mademoiselle Cluoette' by Virgina Whiles

Passing Through: An Installation of Photography

Passing Through, an installation of photography, encourages the nature of memory through an engagement with the materiality of photographic images. Considering memory as an ephemeral phenomenon, I am interested in exploring the emotional and psychological affects that images have on the body and mind. Strategies of collecting and tracing are employed as a means of forming connections between people, places, materials, objects, and images. Recounting personal history, storytelling and participating in the immediate present, I actively seek out images as a means for re-experiencing memory. Triggers reveal themselves during the collection and deconstruction of both personal and found photographic material. Re-assembling this information produces an archive consisting of real and re-imagined fragments of spaces and narratives. Together, these processes produce a body of work that considers the image as an experiential entity that is inherently memory based; triggering memory to create an emotive response in the viewer

Repentir: Digital exploration beneath the surface of an oil painting

Repentir is a mobile application that employs marker-less tracking and augmented reality to enable gallery visitors to explore the under drawing and successive stages of pigment beneath an oil painting's surface. Repentir recognises the position and orientation of a specific painting within a photograph and precisely overlays images that were captured during that painting's creation. The viewer may then browse through the work's multiple states and closely examine its painted surface in one of two ways: sliding or rubbing. Our current prototype recognises realist painter Nathan Walsh's most recent work, "Transamerica". Repentir enables the viewer to explore intermediary stages in the painting's development and see what is usually lost within the materially additive painting process. The prototype offers an innovative approach to digital reproduction and provides users with unique insights into the painter's working method

The Chris Graham Collection

The output is an exhibition and accompanying catalogue featuring a large body of work which covers staff and students, past and present of Leeds Arts University. As part of the University’s ongoing celebration of its heritage, the output offers an exhibition of a collection that honours the creative outputs solely of this institution. The University’s historic 1903 Vernon Street Gallery hosts a celebration of works that span Graham’s career, from the former Jacob Kramer College, through to the now Leeds Arts University. The exhibition aims to celebrate the vitality of work produced by staff and students at the University, whilst also marking a milestone in a continually evolving collection that builds on the legacy of our Head Librarian. Presented in the exhibition output is a carefully curated selection of 43 works from 25 artists from The Chris Graham Collection, representing the broad and vibrant output of the institution. The collection is detailed in full at the end of the accompanying catalogue

Phasmid Project, Fig.1 and Fig.2

Diptych , exhibited as part of David Alesworth's solo exhibition "The Glory of the Garden" at Koel Gallery, Karachi Ed. 1/6, Photo print on rag paper (part 1 of 2), 63.5 x 53.5cm + Text, 2018. Ed. 1/6, print on paper (part 2 of 2), 42 x 30cm, 201

Image Capture

Keynote Speech at the conference RE:PRINT_RE:Present, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge. A kind of created attention deficit disorder seems to operate on us all today to make and distribute images and information at speed. What values do ways of making, which require slow looking, or intensive material explorations have in this accelerated system? How are our perceptions of reality being altered by the world-view presented in the smooth colorful ever morphing simulations that surround us? Why would a time consuming practice like etching have anything to offer in this situation? The limitations of digital technology are often a starting point for artists to reflect on our relationship to real-world fragility. I will be using some example of my own work and that of very recent graduates to look at practices where tactility or dimensionality in a form of hard copy engages with these questions, with reference to the writings of Flusser and Steyerl