View Finder 12

Helen Sear (1955 - )

silver gelatin print

2017

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© Helen Sear. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2024

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  • About the work
    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.


  • 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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    Materials & Techniques
    photograph (as object name), silver gelatin print
  • Details
    Artist
    Helen Sear (1955 - )
    Title
    View Finder 12
    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
    19097/9