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This
exhibition will bring together the work of two American female
artists both of whom manufacture objects usually seen as toys
or dolls, placing them in unexpected contexts before incorporating
them into photographic or video pieces.
Elia
Alba's work plays with ideas of personal identity. She transfers
photographs of real faces onto muslin, hand sewing and stuffing
them like pillows, some miniature, some life size. These 'dolls
heads' are then re-photographed singly or in groups, in various
outdoor and domestic settings to manifest their relationship
to that particular surrounding. Some of the works appear quite
comical whilst others have a more uneasy feel to them. The show
will also contain the video work, 'Unruhe'. This split screen
work uses the same dolls heads, placing them in outdoor surroundings
where they are manipulated by external forces, both natural and
human, taking on a dreamlike quality.
Cynthia
Greig uses scale to explore how our perceptions of self and reality
are effected when our sense of natural order is disturbed. Her
photographs enlarge to human scale tiny stand-ins for real objects;
disrupting a conventional sense of proportion and making the
small seem life-size and the human seem gigantic. In many of
the images, the tiny objects are seen being held by real human
hands, further disrupting our sense of reality. The works exploit
the unique facility of photography to vacillate between fact
and fiction, asking the viewer to consider the complex nature
of visual perception and how it affects our experience.
BELONGING
has been organised in collaboration with the University of Hertfordshire
Galleries and will tour to The Margaret Harvey Gallery, St Albans,
from 4th September until 4th October 2003 (please call to confirm
times 01707 285376)
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