121 High Street

Portsmouth, PO1 2HW

info@jackhousegallery.co.uk

Fine Art Gallery

BIRD MA Photography Portsmouth University 2023

Exhibition Monday 21st to Friday 25th August 2023
Private View Wednesday 23rd August 5-8pm

Gallery open Monday to Friday 11-5pm

BIRD is an exhibition of work from the 2023 MA Photography course at the University of Portsmouth. The work on show is selected from larger photographic projects, each the result of extensive and ongoing research. The course encourages an acknowledgement that photographic art practice has the potential to constitute a valid and valuable research method.

The capacity of representational systems to convey things as somehow apparent or natural, rather than conventional or cultural, forms the basis of ideology. Photography plays a particularly powerful role in this process since it appears to show things as they are, whilst never actually doing this. “A message without a code” as Roland Barthes famously put it.

The title and poster for this exhibition are intended to make this point. A seemingly asinine statement of the obvious that serves to illustrate that neither photography nor language are ever as simple or straightforward as they seem.

Each of these artists is striving to utilise such complexities as a means of research and exploration, producing work that acknowledges and makes use of the duplicitous nature of photography, rather than succumbing to it. This has resulted in an impressive diversity of approaches, incorporating processes and technologies that span the history of the medium, from silver halide to CGI. The themes covered are equally diverse, from deeply personal projects to ecological and even ontological enquiry. In every case photography is employed as a means to work through ideas, to propose questions and to raise awareness.

Photographers Artist Statements

Sudhir Pudutha Ravi Project title: “Witness”

Statement:
This art project combines the concepts of panopticism, postmodernism, and posthumanism to offer a visually compelling exploration of themes such as Art Education Beyond Anthropocentrism. It encourages a rethinking of the traditional anthropocentric narratives that dominate artistic discourse. By examining wildlife reclaiming urban environments during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 using passive observation techniques reminiscent of CCTV surveillance camera projections, this work stimulates critical thinking around issues such as human-animal conflict resolution strategies and sustainable coexistence among diverse life forms on Earth. Instagram: @s_u_d_h_i_r

Shalom Nuhu Project title: I Sign, You Listen

Statement:
My work explores the intersection between personal identity, deafness awareness, and visual media. As a Nigerian woman who moved to the UK at the age of three and underwent cochlear implant surgery, my personal history and experiences inform my creative practice. Through my work, I aim to raise awareness about the challenges faced by the Deaf community, including discrimination and communication barriers. Instagram: @photographynuhu Website: https://nuhuphotography.wixsite.com/shalomnuhu

Mikaela Elliott Project title: My Time

Statement:
I’m a visual artist working with photography. I’m interested in therapeutic photography and where it will lead me and how it will make me feel. In my current practice, I seek to address previous trauma and to raise awareness of domestic abuse. This work is prededicated on a belief that abuse can happen to anyone and that therapeutic photography can be a positive tool to heal past traumas.

Thais Verhasselt Project title: The Art of Selling Yourself

Statement:
"The Art of Selling Yourself" is a satirical art performance inspired by a comment made on my Curriculum Vitae during an interview. It utilises the visual and historical connotations of 17th and 18th-century "Raree shows" or "Peep boxes." This is informed by my interest in illusions, theatre, and optical apparatuses, which combine to examine themes around social issues. The ‘peep-box’ serves as a metaphor to comment on modern recruitment procedures, which are generally intrusive. Therefore, interviewees often sell themselves artificially to prospective companies. Based on my personal experiences, I created self-portraits using Computer Generated Imagery. Each portrait depicts me wearing the uniform of a significant job I held. The performance is a reflection on my own limitations within the job market. Being confronted with such criticisms about my career choices allowed me to examine the parameters of my own cage.

Thaïs Verhasselt is a visual artist based in Portsmouth, United Kingdom, currently completing her Masters in Photography. Her projects explore themes revolving around the construction of identities, visual perception and memory. Instagram: @teeverse_photography

Chris Brown Title of project: A Delightful Blight Upon This Land

Statement:
I am a visual artist and story teller primarily using photography to explore ideas of narrative and storytelling. I question the idea of narrative as the necessary guide towards a conclusion suggesting it might also simply exist as an emotive experience. My work takes influence from a wide range of sources from classic British folk horror, gothic and classic literature as well as a range of romanticism and Pre-Raphaelite paintings. But also on shared instinctual emotions and feelings of nostalgia. The work I present operates as a series of visual prose, encouraging the viewer to immerse themselves in the scene, to become the main character and piece together their own narrative within it. Instagram: @chrisb_phogotgraphy

Clare Teare Project title: Birdhouse

Statement:
I am a visual artist working with photography and film. I am interested in the relationship between humans and other species in a domestic setting. In my current practice I seek to explore the idea family and how sharing a living space with another species requires adaptation whilst providing opportunities for collaboration and creative practice. This work is predicated on a belief that animals and humans are family. Sharing a living space facilitates better understanding across species and provides unique opportunities for creative practice.

Sophie Morrell Project title: Emit

Statement:
emit is a developing photographic project exploring notions around light, time, and space. The works in this project are driven by a curiosity, toward the world and reality, and how we as humans navigate through them. Each work is intended as a playful experiment endeavouring into the ways in which we navigate our world. Queries on light, time, and space are aided by the medium of photography, to further deepen an understanding with our ways of navigation and offer potential further perspectives on reality itself. Website: sophiemorrellartwork.com

Hamerdeep Rana Project title: Ghost

Statement:
Ghost is a photographic project responding to issues of men’s mental health. What is mental health, how is it caused, and why does it happen? By definition, it is “an individual’s condition regarding either their emotional or psychological well-being”. Both representation and awareness of men’s mental health within the public eye are foreshortened due to the stigma surrounding the topic. Through my work I seek to raise awareness of how men frequently seek escape from their daily struggles and feelings regarding their mental health, often through association with everyday ordinary objects. Instagram: @hamerdeep_ranaWebsite: https://www.hamerdeeprana.com/