Q&A with Bronac McNeill

16/02/18

Q&A with Bronac McNeill

on the occasion of 3x3: An exhibition of nine women photographers

New Art Projects, London

11 January - 4 March 2018

Anna McNay: What are the key concerns or themes running through your practice?

Bronac McNeill: Honesty

AMc: How much a part of your work does self-portraiture form?

BMc: In recent years my work has moved from never shooting people to only shooting people. I love capturing reaction, emotion and people when they glow

with love, and especially capturing them doing what makes them tick. So turning the lens on myself is a real challenge and one that initially was an uncomfortable one.

AMc: As a woman looking at a woman (herself – but perhaps also other women, if you also make portraits of others), how aware are you of the conventions and load of the male gaze? To what extent do you work with or subvert these?

BMc: I take photos of women in many different situations, from work headshots, to parties through to portraits where I have more time to get to know them and convey their personality. In the privacy of the studio I often notice the difference in our relationship and even their stance if a male assistant or their male colleague comes into the room. For this reason I purposely try to have female teams in my studio. I regularly coach younger women in business shoots so they

portray a more serious persona than their usual selfie stance conveys. I want a truth that is them not what they have learned is expected of them to be acceptable. All too often I hear women apologise for their appearance and not being photogenic – what ever that means. I rarely hear men saying this. So I want to practise what I preach and show that the sum of my parts is strong like only a woman can be.

AMc: How – if at all – does your sexuality influence or shape your work, especially your self-portraits?

BMc: I don’t think there is any way my sexuality can’t influence my work as equally all my experiences and knowledge influences my work. My ability to relax a person in front of the camera comes from how I relate to the world and in particular the person in front of me. Interestingly it took me longer than I expected to relax myself and really look at my image.

AMc: As a woman who likes women, looking at women, do you feel your gaze is different from the gaze of a heterosexual woman artist? In what way?

BMc: I don’t think I can talk about heterosexual women artists but I often feel my gaze is more sympathetic, less competitive or critical, and more encouraging than a heterosexual woman expects. My subjects leave my studio feeling better about themselves and have voiced that they enjoyed learning how to control their learned patriarchal ticks or idiosyncrasies to their empowerment.

AMc: Can you say something about the work you are submitting for this exhibition? How are you seeking to portray yourself? What are the key aspects you’re drawing forth? Physical, psychological, sociological…?

BMc: I was once told by a lesbian friend that I am a ‘140 footer’. Allegedly this

means you can tell I’m a lesbian from, yes you guessed it, 140 feet away. On hearing that a small part of me thought: ‘Oh no! My poor parents must be so upset.’ The rest of me laughed and was slightly proud. My gender is only part of me but one it’s taken a long time to embrace. I’d like to give an honest representation of myself but I’m struggling with what that actually is. I know I wear my heart on my sleeve and now I am seeing that in this work. I know I can hide my sad eyes from those who can’t be bothered the look but not from those who care for me. I don’t want the happy selfie that I do so well. I want to show a depth that is reflective of my life so far plus the contentment I feel in my life

right now.

AMc: Do you seek to portray yourself as object, subject, or both? How does

this dynamic come through in your work?

BMc: This is only the second time I’ve worked on a self-portrait. The last time I was definitely an object, as I was so disconnected from the situation, I took the shots and left them for a year before I felt secure enough to work on them. Now I am a subject as I am very connected to the work, which I hope will be apparent.

AMc: Do you work in media other than photography? If so, how does the gaze offered by the camera differ from the viewpoint obtained through other media? How does the experience as artist differ? Does it make the act of looking easier or more difficult? If you don’t work with other media, what is it about the gaze of the camera that attracts you to working with photography?

BMc: I work in both stills and film, I’m not talented enough to paint or draw and so concentrate on what I love. I love it because what was once thought of as honest recording has now become as multi-layered as any artist’s impression. I record moments that otherwise would be lost forever. I refuse to over-photoshop and prove to clients that it isn’t needed – I want to capture the unique life in a subject and therefore the beauty of their life. That beauty doesn’t

always need to be happy.

AMc: What one work of art, depicting a woman as object – or subject, have

you been most influenced/impressed by and what is it about this work

that captures you?

BMc: Sorry I have no answer for this at present.

Bronac McNeill

Image:

Bronac McNeill

Observe, Examine, Judge

2017

Also published here

Q&A with Sarah Pucill

16/02/18
Q&A with Sarah Pucill
on the occasion of 3x3: An exhibition of nine women photographers
New Art Projects, London
11 January - 4 March 2018

Anna McNay: What are the key concerns or themes running through your practice?

Sarah Pucill: Gender and sexuality are a part, although saying this sounds so limiting. Maybe vision would be better, what can be said without speaking or without words… So images in motion and images in stasis and then sometimes with the shock of words. Maybe an overriding concern has been to attempt to give voice to that which is mostly silent, which comes out of feminist examination of power relations of what takes up space and what doesn’t. 

AMc: How much a part of your work does self-portraiture form?

SP: Probably all of my work – films and photographs – but in an indirect way.

AMc: As a woman looking at a woman (herself – but perhaps also other women, if you also make portraits of others), how aware are you of the conventions and load of the male gaze? To what extent do you work with or subvert these?

SP: Really difficult questions because we are all part of a world where we unconsciously learn from our environment, whether through choice or not. The idea of a lesbian gaze has been given so little space in cultural discussion – it’s quite strange, I think. In the images of my late partner Sandra Lahire and myself, I wanted to show something of the specificity of a lesbian looking. The question is whether this is possible and the answer might be that it is clearer to do in a medium that isn’t image-based but, at the same time, I am and always have been interested in this problem, and have wanted to work it through. Many of my images of Sandra and myself show a mirror being held. This speaks directly of a female gaze as it is close up and involves the camera. I made a film of my mother and myself where we hold mirrors for and to each other. With Sandra, for me, the images speak of a love, of a unity between two women. It feels as if there is an absence of discussion on issues like this, i.e. how a lesbian gaze might differ from a straight male gaze. The importance of this is a feminist issue, in other words, to free up what women can have and enjoy because the insistence on heterosexuality isn’t just homophobic, it is patriarchal.

AMc: How – if at all – does your sexuality influence or shape your work, especially your self-portraits?  

SP: Well, I can’t compare to anything, so I can’t know. I can consciously decide to speak about such matters, as I have done. Deviant choices of one’s sexuality certainly impact on one’s life. Without a doubt. 

AMc: As a woman who likes women, looking at women, do you feel your gaze is different from the gaze of a heterosexual woman artist? In what way? 

SP: Yes, I do think it is different and I think it’s a shame that difference hasn’t had a space to be articulated. For me, that difference is very important on feminist grounds because women relating with women is important for a feminist utopia or just for a feminist future. These ideas were explored in French feminist theory – that in patriarchy men have relations with men which makes up the homosocial world (Irigaray), men have relations with women, but women don’t have relations with women, instead they compete for power. To say something about the difference of a lesbian gaze: I think it’s something one really can’t put words to, except to say that the figure of difference is less and so there is a kind of closerness, the homoerotic of difference within sameness. Something that has its origins in one’s early relation with the mother that is different from a heterosexual encounter. But this is probably psychoanalytic talk that maybe doesn’t describe anything tangible.

AMc: Can you say something about the work you are submitting for this exhibition? How are you seeking to portray yourself? What are the key aspects you’re drawing forth? Physical, psychological, sociological…?

SP: The images of myself and Sandra were attempts to explore a lesbian gaze, in terms also of a labyrinth, from an idea of the lesbian uncanny, which is subject matter explored by the duo of artists Maria Klonaris and Katerina Thomadaki (lesbian Greek filmmakers), who explore this idea in their Super 8 film Double Labyrinth, as part of their series Cinema Of The Body.

AMc: Do you seek to portray yourself as object, subject, or both? How does this dynamic come through in your work?  

SP: In the still images, it’s a hovering between, definitely it’s about striving for a subjectivity, but acknowledging that objectness is part of that. The state of being over here and over there, being an object for another and a subject for oneself at the same time, are themes I have been exploring over a long time. The mirror has been an image long used in my work that speaks about a state of being split (where a figure doubles) but also about surveillance and, at the same time, it offers the potential for reflexivity. 

AMc: Do you work in media other than photography? If so, how does the gaze offered by the camera differ from the viewpoint obtained through other media? How does the experience as artist differ? Does it make the act of looking easier or more difficult? If you don’t work with other media, what is it about the gaze of the camera that attracts you to working with photography? 

SP: The gaze in a film offers more in terms of bringing subjectivity and is a great medium for playing between these roles. Swollen Stigma (21min, 1998) and Cast (20min, 2000) both attempt to explore the hovering between subjectivity and objectivity in lesbian relations. Also, in Stages Of Mourning (19min, 2004), these themes are present, but the theme of a lesbian gaze suddenly shifts into a gaze between the living and the dead. In my recent films Magic Mirror (75min, 2013) and Confessions To The Mirror (68min, 2016), a lesbian gaze is present in Claude Cahun looking at her lover Suzanne Malherbe but also possibly my gaze at Cahun, but this gaze works as much in the written voice of Cahun and the ways in which I have put voices and images together in both films. Although photography and film are distinct mediums, I have worked between these mediums. I have written about intermediality in Magic Mirror and Confessions To The Mirror where I bring photography into my films and in this way the photograph becomes a part of the film.

AMc: What one work of art, depicting a woman as object – or subject, have you been most influenced/impressed by and what is it about this work that captures you?  

SP: The image of Claude Cahun hiding in a cupboard, lying on a shelf dressed as a puppet doll.  Why this image evokes so much I can only guess at and I think this not knowing is to do with its power. Is it because she is asleep? What is it she is unconscious of and how does that resonate for the viewer? Is it because she is both exhibiting herself (as an object? As a subject?) and yet she is also hiding, or ‘as if’ hiding? Is it because it is the activity of a child? The child within the adult.  It is certainly a space of inbetweeness, child-adult, exposed-hidden, inanimate-alive, awake-asleep. It’s a beautiful image and I have re-enacted it in my film Confessions To The Mirror (68min, 2016) with a voice over of text by Cahun, which is equally very much a self-portrait through Cahun’s self-portrait. 

Sarah Pucill

Image:

Sarah Pucill

Stages of Mourning IX

2000

Also published here

Interview: John Stezaker

16/02/18
Interview: John Stezaker

Published in the autumn 2017 issue of Art Quarterly

Interview: Haroon Mirza

16/02/18
Interview: Haroon Mirza

Published in the winter 2017 issue of Art Quarterly

Book Review: The Art of the Erotic

16/02/18
Book Review: The Art of the Erotic
Phaidon Editors

Published in the winter 2017 issue of Art Quarterly

Feature: Elizabeth Friedlander

16/02/18
Feature: Elizabeth Friedlander

Published in the winter 2017 issue of Art Quarterly

Meet the Collectors: Robert Chipperfield (Southampton City Art Gallery)

16/02/18
Meet the Collectors: Robert Chipperfield 
Southampton City Art Gallery

Published in the autumn 2017 issue of Art Quarterly

Interview with Jason Brooks

13/02/18

Interview: Jason Brooks

Jason Brooks: The Subject is Not the Subject
Marlborough, London

9 February – 10 March 2018

For his third exhibition with Marlborough, London, Jason Brooks (b1968) has put together a three-part show of staggering proportions. One room is filled with his huge, incredibly detailed and cinematically cropped, black-and-white portraits of friends and people he considers to have a “discerning eye”. In fact, the airbrushed works are painted solely in black, with any white areas being the paper showing through. Familiar faces surround the viewer – writer and political commentator Will Self, artist Sue Webster, war photographer Don McCullin, fashion designer Erdem – names we probably recognise, but whose faces we maybe do not. Standing under the gaze of so many supersized pairs of eyes, we, the viewer, become the viewed – an intriguing, but unsettling experience.

In another space, Brooks is showing his landscape works: remakes of amateur paintings he has collected over the past couple of decades at car boot sales. Taking these vignettes as inspiration, he “goes on a journey” with them, combining airbrush, acrylic and oil paints in such a way as to explore all aspects of painterly language, as well as his place within art history. In his Gloucestershire studio, he showed us two small works bought on separate occasions, inspired by John Constable’s The Hay Wain (1821), and clearly part of a diptych. In the gallery, viewers can see Brooks’s response to these.

For the final space – conceived as a darkened chapel – Brooks has created a three-metre-tall, black sculpture of the Virgin Mary, veiled, and based on a 19th-century bust. She is surrounded by devotional imagery of Christ and vanitas paintings.

While these three strands are quite disparate and one might be forgiven for not immediately recognising them all as the work of one and the same artist, Brooks argues that there is a common thread running through his work, namely, as the title of the exhibition states, that the subject is not the subject. What you think you are seeing is not necessarily what you think it is at all. But this is really only something you can discover by getting up close and personal with his work, uncovering the startling trompe l’oeil effects, seeing the painterly pixellation in his otherwise hyperrealist portraits, and entering into the cinematic world that Brooks creates.

Watch this interview here

Essay: Eileen Cooper: Under the Same Moon at Letitia Gallery, Beirut

01/02/18

Catalogue essay for

Eileen Cooper: Under the Same Moon 

Letitia Gallery, Beirut

They stood there marvelling at the forest,

gazing at the lofty cedars

When Eileen Cooper visited Lebanon in the autumn of 2017, she too, like the ancient Sumerian demigod and king Gilgamesh some three millennia earlier, was inspired by the lofty cedars. An artist whose work has long drawn on the symbolism of and mythology associated with trees, she was struck by their beauty, size, and stability. The artist and writer Emily Carr (1871-1945), describing her native Canadian cedars, noted: ‘Cedars are terribly sensitive to change of time and light – sometimes they are bluish cold-green, then they turn yellow warm-green – sometimes their boughs flop heavy and sometimes float, then they are fairy as ferns and then they droop, heavy as heartaches.’ Cooper, with a shared artist’s sensibility, felt similarly enchanted. Upon her return to London, wanting to make works responding to these great trees, she set out to seek a nearby specimen, eventually chancing upon one in Greenwich Park, south London, which became her model, in as far as she ever uses one, helping to prompt as she began to draw.

Read the full essay in the catalogue

Interview with Edmund Clark

01/02/18

Interview: Edmund Clark

Edmund Clark: In Place of Hate
Ikon Gallery, Birmingham
6 December 2017 – 11 March 2018

Edmund Clark: The Day the Music Died
International Center of Photography, New York
26 January – 6 May 2018

Edmund Clark: The Mountains of Majeed
Flowers, New York

27 January – 3 March 2018

Edmund Clark isn’t one to pick easy subjects for his work. As an editorial photographer, he found himself working with teenage fathers and elderly prisoners, and this set him on his route to working with terror suspects, prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, and, most recently, a three-year residency at the UK’s only wholly therapeutic prison, HMP Grendon, where he worked with the inmates to produce four new bodies of challenging work, each employing methods new to his practice, which are now on show at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham.

Pressed flowers trapped within a lightbox enclosure, the size of an average cell (1.98m²); a five-screen film of journeys around the prison’s corridors, grounds and perimeter (Vanishing Point); a film and book (My Shadow’s Reflection) comprising architectural images of the prison and pinhole camera images of the prisoners – blurred beyond recognition and speaking, Clark says, of how prisoners are not really seen in contemporary political discourse; and a longer 74-minute film work (Oresteia), showing a form of psychodrama episode, based on the Greek tragedy, with prisoners playing – and responding to – the various characters, exploring notions of acceptable violence, catharsis and empathy.

Clark has also recently spent time on Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, taking photographs, which evoke the intangible yet intensely felt presence of the mountains beyond and the unseen insurgents they hide. These, along with reproductions of paintings of the mountains found at the base, and a towering column of razor wire, comprise a second exhibition at Flowers New York.

Simultaneously, Clark is having his first major solo exhibition in the US at the International Center of Photography, New York, where he is showing a cross-section of his work exploring structures of power and control in the global war on terror. Although Clark sees his work as political, he is adamant he is not an activist, but a “harmless, liberal artist”.

Watch the interview here