View Finder 19

Location

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.

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.

Places

Subjects

Materials & Techniques

photograph (as object name), silver gelatin print

Artist

Helen Sear (1955 - )

Title

View Finder 19

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

19097/12