art

went to see a student photography show the other day – "embedded" and it was the students of the university of westminster whose work was on view. pretty much all of it was technically proficient but in these days of digital cameras that’s the least you can expect (ok i admit even with a digital i can’t get a decent image……)
there were few very interesting pieces at the show, which is always a bit upsetting (and no i don’t expect to see the most wonderfully original stuff when i go to shows, but i do hope to see a spark of something). so seeing two sets of portraits that did very little with portraiture that you hadn’t seen over and over, was disappointing.
honourable mentions go to kate clarke and her series called no 72, witty, fun and provocative. i suspect she will make a name for herself.
shih ying lin and her "woman" series inspired by eileen chang’s novel "red rose and white rose" it is basically a series of images of two oriental women who are dressed similarly and appear in similar but different poses. with the images mounted on rice paper with the text of the story written in chinese on it. this looked effective and had some thought go into it.
paul freemans "holborn/work" "british library/study" "tate/art" are clever technical photos that have had the background information taken out so you are left with just the people caught in motion- each one uses a different technique to get the timing and composition sorted. again the theme is interesting and well executed. to be honest i preferred the image he had on his business card than the ones that appeared in the show.
a name from the show to watch out for is cinnamon heathcote-drury an attractive sloaney to judge not only from her name, but accent and dress sense. she had an installation of two looped movies. in one she appears out of focus her arms out stretched she comes into focus and then falls back – this is constantly looped and is called "perpetuum mobile". the other is a doll on a rocking chair in front of a mirror the chair rocks gently and the doll fades out and fades in again, this is looped, and is called eternal recurrence. both these dvd projections are utter tosh sub bill viola and sam taylor wood. so trust me cinnamon is a name to be watching out for in the future – she will go far.