Both exhibitions run from 15 January – 28 March 2014
Open weekdays from 9am – 5pm
Private View for both exhibitions 2 – 4pm on Saturday 25 January 2014
Roeland Verhallen
“I, the Photograph” is the result of Roeland Verhallen’s pursuit of the ‘true’ portrait of someone: if we assume the average portrait is a mask, how can we capture a glimpse of someone’s true self? He employed an experimental setup: the subject was seated between two loudspeakers to listen to five songs he or she had chosen, while Verhallen largely obscured the camera, studio equipment, and himself from the subjects’ view. The music acted as a conduit for evoking certain emotions and memories – it helped to break down self-awareness, stripping down subjects’ social defences, in order to get closer to their ‘true’ portrait. The resulting photographs explore the conjuring power of music, and the transfer between two senses: can Sight capture what Sound arouses? The project is not solely photographic; it also proved to be a form of ‘visual therapy’ for both photographer and photographed: subjects often opened up completely, revealing elements of themselves previously unanticipated.
Roeland Verhallen (b.1989) is an autodidact photographer from the Netherlands. He is currently a PhD student at the University of Cambridge where he researches human visual perception in the department of Experimental Psychology. By combining his photography with his academic research, he creates photographs that question the fundamental rules of observation. Intrigued by themes such as time, transience and ancestry, his meticulously planned photographic series are multivalent and rich in symbolism.
Ash Summers
Ash mostly works with painting and drawing, using inspiration from life, instinct, memory, imagination and photographs. Into this he interweaves other disciplines including animation, text, sound, and found or discarded items of his own and from others. Rhythms, patterns, colours and ideas for images evolve out of observations, music, daily experiences and living. Notes taken by capturing sounds, snapshots or using writing, are brought into the studio to forget, combine or use to produce work. Specific areas of recent interest include spirituality, religion and visits to museums.
Ash Summers (b.1988) graduated from University College Falmouth with a degree in Fine Art in 2011 and is currently practicing as an artist at the Wysing Arts Centre. While studying in Falmouth he experimented with printmaking including lithography, screen printing and etching using a variety of photographic source imagery from the past and present. In the final year of his degree his work ‘Tree (Catocala)’ was shortlisted for the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2011. In 2012 he exhibited in the Summer Show at The Royal Academy in London with a detailed observational drawing of the Landscape currently surrounding him at his Fenland home.
All images © the artists