The analogue film photography in Superimposition – taken by artist and curator Charlotte Tegan – fosters in the viewer a sense of familiarity and comfort, using identifiable locations, everyday scenarios and almost playful compositions. In this way, Tegan’s photography takes on a role not dissimilar to personal ‘happy snaps’ photography. It is a vehicle through which reminisce and memory recall occurs.
Like flipping through a photo album, Superimposition invites the viewer to recollect the subject matter, imbuing it with their own experiences; filling in the spaces in and around the images from memory.
Like human memory, the images do not present their subject matter in a photorealistic way. Rather they reflect their familiar locations and activities back to the viewer across a myriad of surfaces, like looking at reflections of the surface of a diamond. Angular imagery, repetition, inversion, mirrored surfaces and superimposition simultaneously break the scene and the viewer’s recollections.
The resulting disquiet and anxiety prompts the viewer to question their own memories of the places and activities in front of them. And in this moment the viewer sees the fragility of human memory.
Exhibition Opening: 6.00–9.00pm on Friday 22 January 2016
Image:
Charlotte Tegan
Lap pool of the Gods, 2015
35mm double exposure
