View Finder 16
silver gelatin print
2017
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About the work
- Location
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Country: Switzerland
City: Berne
Place: British Embassy
The 12 photographs 'Viewfinder' play with both the idea of an interrupted view and the focusing mechanism of pre-digital cameras. The hay bale is the central motif that simultaneously blocks the view. These silver gelatin prints have the veracity of an analogue and perhaps unmediated image, but in fact they have been altered and the shadow of the hay bale removed. This gives the effect of a flattening a traditional single point perspective introducing a sense of the uncanny into the experience of viewing.
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About the artist
Helen Sear studied Fine Art at Reading University and later at the Slade School in London. Her photographic works in the 1991 British Council exhibition De-Composition: Constructed Photography in Britain toured extensively in Latin America and Eastern Europe. Sear was the first woman to represent Wales with a solo exhibition at the 56th Venice Biennale 2015. Her work has been shown in numerous solo exhibitions at institutions including the Pennings Foundation, Eindhoven, Holland and Impressions Gallery, Bradford (2019); and the Glyn Vivian Museum and Art Gallery, Swansea (2017), as well as in group exhibitions including at the Swedenborg Film Festival, London; the Royal West of England Academy and Pallant House Gallery, Chichester (all in 2023); The Grange, Rottingdean, Brighton; the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff and Centre Space Bristol (all in 2021); and the Dulwich Picture Gallery and Royal Academy, London (2020). In 2021 she was voted one of the key 100 women photographers practising globally by The Royal Photographic Society.
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Details
- Artist
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Helen Sear (1955 - )
- Title
- View Finder 16
- Portfolio Title
- View Finder
- Date
- 2017
- Medium
- silver gelatin print
- Dimensions
- height: 30.5 cm; width: 33.0 cm
- Acquisition
- Purchased from James Hyman Gallery, March 2022
- Provenance
- James Hyman Gallery, London UK; from whom purchased by UK Government Art Collection, 31 March 2022
- GAC number
- 19097/11