Still Life

April 2015

The Arts Club is delighted to announce an exhibition of five contemporary photographers who work within the still life genre: Anne Collier, Elad Lassry, Roe Ethridge, Matt Lipps and Annette Kelm. In the work of these artists, tableaux and artificial sets are carefully constructed and then photographed, creating in each instance a highly constructed image.

For each of the works in the exhibition, the photograph itself acts as an object, rather than capturing a cinematic mood or documenting a past moment. With a clearly apparent artifice, these works play with and question the ‘truth’ conveyed by a photograph.

The classical form of the still life is subverted by unusually vivid colour or unexpected elements: Elad Lassry introduces geometric forms and elaborate framing, while Roe Ethridge uses pre-existent commercial images and common foodstuffs such as processed ham and tinned peas. Annette Kelm conflates pattern and form in intentionally confusing arrangements which combine a variety of historical, artistic, and cross-cultural references.

Anne Collier and Matt Lipps reference specific print publications. Collier’s minimal composition Valerie spotlights a pile of well-thumbed copies of a radical feminist manifesto by Valerie Solanas. Lipps pulls out imagery from the American arts and culture magazine Horizon to create complex tableaux which he lights up in psychedelic colours and then re-captures in a single photograph.

The works are displayed closely together in the style of a salon hang, reflecting both the rich history of the still life genre and the decorative ornament of the anteroom’s Georgian interior.

The exhibition is curated by Pernilla Holmes and Amelie von Wedel of Wedel Art Advisory. Both the Arts Club and the curators warmly thank the artists for their work and enthusiasm in creating this show.