| Focal
Point Gallery is very pleased to bring together two new bodies
of work by photographer Martin Newth, Room Shutter and Houses.
For the series Room/Shutter
Martin Newth has used the curtains in domestic bedrooms to
replicate the action of a camera's shutter over an entire
night. At dusk the camera is set up to point at a window and
the aperture is left open to slowly photograph the drawn,
patterned curtains in low light. In the morning, eight or
nine hours later, the curtains are opened so that the view
through the window is also recorded, seemingly superimposed
onto the pattern. Through this process the room becomes both
the camera and part of the subject. The day and night (and
their ratio) are shown in one image. Sunlight pierces the
crack between the curtains to produce an overexposed slash
of white light. The photographs present two views of nature
simultaneously: the one through the window; and the other,
an idealised, repeated view of nature on the patterned curtain.
In the Houses series
the photographs record suburban houses late at night. The
exposure times are two hours. Although the range of houses
reflect the individuality of our homes, these ordinary residences
are shown in a way that they cannot actually be seen in reality
or, indeed, at the time of exposure. Seen from this detached
viewpoint, they become portraits of the spaces we inhabit
but they have gained a supernatural quality in the making
with every aspect of light and detail being heightened, giving
rise to odd shadows and strange light sources.
Martin Newth graduated
from the Slade School of Art with an MFA in Fine Art Media
in 1999. He is currently Subject Leader of the BA Photography
course at Camberwell College of Arts. His recent shows include
'Vanishing Point' - an exhibition of a series of night time
photographs at MAC Gallery, Birmingham and most recently 'Andmoreagain'
- a group exhibition exploring the relationship between time
and the photographic at Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool in 2006
and Solar Cinema - 2006-2007.
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