Bubblegum Club

Tag: self-portraits

  • Self-Portraits – The experimental one-night-only-show in Kingston, Jamaica

    Self-Portraits – The experimental one-night-only-show in Kingston, Jamaica

    In early August of this year, visual Artists Camille Chedda and Rodell Warner presented their first collaborative project at the New Local Space (NLS) —a contemporary visual art initiative space in Kingston, Jamaica.

    The show, titled ‘Self-Portraits’ sees the artists breaking new ground in their respective fields, allowing for conversation between ideas, medium and modes of creation. The show captures the dynamics of imagining the self and offers idiosyncratic interdependences where energies collide —diverging and once again converging at an end point.

    “The show was the artists’ spontaneous response to discovering surprising continuities in their apparently very different practices.” explains Warner.

    Warner is a Trinidadian artist working through new media and photography—his most recent works comprise photographic portraits with digital animations projected onto his subjects’ bodies, transfiguring their appearance. His work has been exhibited through numerous shows as well as publications across the world: The Most Corrupting Notion Ever Captured in a Dream (2017) – Trinidad, Year of The Snake Eating Itself (2013) – Trinidad and Common Room, Observations and Comments on Public-to-Public Communication (2012) – South Africa, to name a few.

    Chedda is a Jamaica-based artist whose work articulates issues of postcolonial identity through the use of disposable and construction material. Chedda studied at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts (BFA, 2007) and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (MFA, 2012). She has exhibited her work at numerous shows including: Relational Undercurrents (2018), New York, Ghetto Biennale (2017) and Haiti and Conversation Xchange (2015) New York.

    The artists began a discussion about their approaches, that soon evolved into an exhibition of small, highly detailed works that invite intimate engagement from the viewer. The show was an attempt to share the loose but cohesive discussions between two artists and their work with a public. –  Show press release.

    ‘Self-Portraits’ offers immerse narrative potential, a way to hold a mirror towards ourselves in exploring and reflecting our own stories and experiences. Presented side by side, the different works demonstrate the possibility of exploring a subject in great depth —offering capsules of history in relation to the self.

  • Self-discovery through imagery – ‘Plastic Crowns’ exhibition by photographer Phumzile Khanyile

    Self-discovery through imagery – ‘Plastic Crowns’ exhibition by photographer Phumzile Khanyile

    Young photographer Phumzile Khanyile is showing her first solo exhibition titled Plastic Crowns at the Market Photo Workshop gallery in Johannesburg.

    “Plastic Crowns is a journey of self-discovery,” Phumzile explained, “As a photographer I think the vision is more important than the equipment. I believe that when making a body of work there is nothing more important than honesty”. This guided her decision to include herself in her images. Using her personal experiences as a backdrop for larger conversations, the self-portraits in her exhibition try to unpack the expectations she carried from her grandmother around what it means to be a woman. This was the entry point for her to address the ways in which women’s bodies are closely monitored with regards to how we choose to present ourselves. “I wanted to figure out for myself what being female is,” Phumzile explained.

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    © Phumzile Khanyile, Plastic Crowns, 2016

    Choosing sexuality as the focal point, she uses symbols to talk back to these expectations. Balloons scattered on the gallery floor and featured in her photographs represent different sexual partners. Through this she speaks back to ideas around promiscuity, stating that she views having multiple partners as a choice and not a reflection on lack of morals. Given that these expectations and teachings come from how she grew up, her images play with understandings of family photographs by turning the idea of the family photo album on its head through telling the story of what happens after the idealized family photograph has been taken, and producing images that are not often seen in albums because they highlight flaws within the familial structure. During our conversation Phumzile pointed to a photograph of her standing next to a black coat hanging from the handles of a cupboard door. In the image she links arms with the coat, as if she was linking arms with another person. She explains that this particular photograph refers to the absence of her father. “It was really important for me to create this because I have lost all of my family albums at home. I wanted to create the feeling of something that is familiar.”.

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    © Phumzile Khanyile, Plastic Crowns, 2016

    To create the feeling of old family photographs and worn down photo albums, Phumzile covered her digital camera with a cloth. “I didn’t want them [the images] to have this clean sense or this technically correct thing about it,” Phumzile explained. Certain images come across as blurred, slightly out of focus and grainy, working hand-in-hand with her inversion of the family  photo album.

    Having been awarded the Gisele Wulfsohn Mentorship in Photography in 2015, Phumzile was mentored by photographer and filmmaker Ayana V. Jackson. Her exhibition will be up until the 19th of March.

    Check out more of her work visit her website or follow her on Instagram

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    © Phumzile Khanyile, Plastic Crowns, 2016

     

    Phumzile KhanyileFrame Allocations_23
    © Phumzile Khanyile, Plastic Crowns, 2016