From Andrew Frost…
The relationship between painting and photography has always been uncertain. To say that photography simply replaced the role of painting is to radically oversimplify each medium, its capabilities and histories, yet with the advent of imaging technology that ranges from the intimacy of the portable camera to the universal scope of satellite imaging, photography provides artists with a range of subjects that would otherwise escape the eye. Martine Emdur’s New Work is a suite of paintings that could only exist because of a certain type of camera that can snap pictures underwater.
In the show Emdur explores the experience of swimming, a host of bodies cut in half, truncated and foreshortened by the surface of the water, some naked, others in modest cozzies suitable for pools and ocean. Emdur’s view is romantic, impressionistic and her paint creates a sense of water, its space and depth and translucency in a way a photograph can rarely capture. While the artist’s style isn’t what you’d call photorealistic, it might actually capture the world beneath more accurately than mere representation.
Until September 15
Olsen Irwin, Paddington
Pic: Martine Emdur, Take Me to The Deep Sea, 2013. Oil on linen, 122x152cms.
