John Hurrell – 20 June, 2010

The nine coloured photographs by Andrea Gardner at Bath St. are based on dioramas she has set up in her studio using old paintings of idyllic landscapes as backdrops. In the foreground she has arranged props that include stuffed does or rams, living human body parts, real and plastic plants, blowflies, model figures, soil and shredded cardboard. Some of the textures and placements have also been digitally enhanced. These works explore notions of the woody vista in relation to the artificial.

Nature and culture, the artificial and the authentic seem to merge together here - though it is all fake. It is not as if there is a state possible beyond the reach of human mental ordering and the social imagination. What is inside the frame as ‘art’ and ‘beauty’, and the demarcated culturally implanted containing edges themselves, are one - as agreed upon contrivances.

Gardner’s wilful theatricality generates some intriguing illusory ‘picturesque’ imagery, though the ones with little humans scurrying about verge on the twee. The dominance of the foreground means that there also tends to be present a reference to Dutch still life didacticism about the fleeting nature of life, though only as a footnote to the background panorama. Decay and inevitable collapse are carefully underplayed - though nevertheless noted. The synthetic materials and clean bold colours, so dominant overall, never give them a chance.

There is something terribly ‘eighties’ about this work that is so aware of the quoted, constructed and manmade. The dioramas are like Laurie Simmons, early Ronnie van Hout and others, but with digital expertise thrown in so that images are usually always in focus.

The ersatz depth of each pastoral ‘stage set’ would probably work better if the photographs were bigger so that the viewer had more bodily involvement - more spatial participation and immersive potential - via a ‘window’ on the wall. Nevertheless with their sensual appeal, calculated confusing of different sorts of representation, abundance of allusions to art history and a touch of science fiction, they make compulsive viewing.

John Hurrell

Print | Facebook | Twitter | Email