Aidan Abernethy

2011-07-30T14:43:00.003-07:00

WORK FROM 2011

This current series of work, under the title Limen Lucis, draws on some of the earliest and most direct explorations with light sensitive materials from which modern photography is descended. William Henry Fox Talbot’s original experiments involved placing objects directly on sensitised paper and exposing it to sunlight. No camera equipment is involved in these ‘sun prints’; artifacts make direct contact with photosensitive material to create a unique image - a physical memory embedded with an echo of the object.

Arminghall Henge, Spring Equinox 2011 (No.3)

found artifacts, light, silver photographic print

(24 x 30 inches) 2011

For the Arminghall Henge images, I have used this elegant 19th Century process to investigate the site of a Neolithic Henge. It is rather like trying to connect with a long-dead ancestor, to bring them into the present time. There is little evidence of my monument available to the naked eye, but using natural objects found around the site, the sunlight of the Spring Equinox and silver based photographic paper as used since the 1870’s, I have created these ephemeral images that seem to have escaped from some other reality.

2011-07-30T04:36:00.000-07:00

EXHIBITIONS IN 2011

In late August I participated in the third SLASH Quintet group show at the Wymondham Arts Centre.

Five contemporary artists - myself along with Christine Allman, Anna MacRae, Kathryn Caswell and Dennis Caswell - demonstrate very personal ways of exploring the world as we experience it around us. Together we engage with the subtle balancing act, as we each negotiate the many complex and subtle decisions in the process towards resolving our individual concerns... the ongoing pursuit of the slash point.

Arminghall Henge images ( 24 x 30 inch silver prints) mounted on wood, displayed at Wymondham Art Centre, August 2010.

Elements: Material Worlds was at The Forum during July. It was hosted by The Forum Trust and curated by Norfolk Contemporary Art Society (NCAS).

I had two pieces in the show from my Arminghall Henge series. I was also invited to present a talk about my unusual working process.

2011-05-23T14:59:00.001-07:00

OPEN STUDIOS

During May & June you could drop in and see us at the ZeroEast studios on the outskirts of Norwich. We were open to visitors 10am - 4pm on the weekends of 21/22 and 28/29 May 2011 - offering Taster Sessions and informal talks about our work. Map here.

2010-01-21T02:08:00.000-08:00

WORK FROM 2010

These pieces combine old and new processes to create images which suggest some of the qualities apparent in the fragmentary remains of religious wall paintings that survived the English Dissolution of the mid-16th century. My work deals with he impact of growing up in Northern Ireland during The Troubles of the 1970's.

From the series, Strange Archaeology

stained & toned silver print (20 x 25 inches)

2010

Strange Archaeology explores issues of personal and communitytrauma. Drawing on the damaged and fragmentary evidence in my own archive ofnegatives and glass plates the Strange Archaeology series investigates a troubled past – the scars left by family andsocial conflict are echoed in the disfiguring effects of printing from old,ill-treated and distressed negatives.

2010-01-11T03:44:00.000-08:00

EXHIBITIONS DURING 2010

In January I had work accepted in the new Elements exhibition which took place at The Forum in Norwich. Elements is a new exhibition for the East of England, showing contemporary art, which this year explored Man and the Environment.

Later in the Spring I participated in a mixed group show at Stew Gallery - Dividing Lines. I showed my new Strange Archaeology work for the first time, to a very positive response. The "strong emotional impact of these shards of traumatic memory" was remarked upon, as were my "exquisitely produced prints."

Strange Archaeology images (toned & stained silver prints) mounted and framed, on display at Stew during April 2010.

In early September I showed a selection of new and older work alongside my colleagues from the LAC collective - our third annual exhibition at The Forum, and our first with support from Norfolk County Council and the Forum Trust.

LAC private view at The Forum in September.

2009-06-24T04:08:00.000-07:00

WORK FROM 2009

From the series, Assault on Truth

5 toned silver prints (20 x 25 inches)

2009

This series of images form part of the installation I exhibited for my final MA show (see below). The piece deals with betrayal as well as physical and emotional incarceration; recurring themes throughout the history of psychiatry, especially when explored through patients' own accounts of their experiences.

From the series, Abnormal Psychology

12 toned silver prints (8 x 10 inches)

2009

A lot of my work draws on contemporary documentary practice to explore notions of 'madness' and the dysfunctional family. Here I use photography not to document the present, but as a way of observing the outcome of past events. It is more an archaeological approach; I am drawn to the leftovers and signs of damage. I present Images as fragments not wholes, evidence of the aftermath. This work is informed by the of the history of psychiatry, psychological trauma and diagnostic labeling.

2009-05-13T04:03:00.000-07:00

Undiagnosed

toned & stained silver print (20 x 28 inches)

2009

Exhibited in the Incubation show curated with Yasmin Canvin.

2009-05-13T03:53:00.000-07:00

MA DEGREE SHOW

Assault on Truth

mounted & framed silver prints (20 x 25 inchs) with projection

MA Photographic Studies
2009

Questions hang in the air between girl and brickwork, architecture and institution, aftermath and its interpretation.

SOMETHING ABOUT HOW I WORK

For me making a photograph is to be simultaneously arrested by something, and through that uncomplicated gesture of exposure, to arrest it. A photograph by its nature is a mysterious remnant, and embedded in its disclosures – in its disconnected thenness – is evidence of something once experienced, felt, considered, and finally reinvented. Evidence too of something that no longer exists, as such, as well as something that clearly does. This is the simple and unavoidable truth of the impermanence of things, and a marker of the hold that history can have over us. In the camera’s apparent ability to momentarily suspend the ordinary stuff of daily life, can be found the possibility of time transcended.

PAST EXHIBITIONS

During Contemporary Art Norwich 2009 (CAN09), 11 July - 31 August, a vibrant city-wide celebration of international contemporary visual art, the LAC collective presented its second annual exhibition. I showed twelve new works from my Abnormal Psychology series.

Abnormal Psychology images displayed in the Forum during Contemporary Art Norwich

2009-05-13T03:30:00.000-07:00

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2011 Open Exhibition, Halesworth Gallery, Suffolk
2011 Slash Quintet, Wymondham Arts Centre, Norfolk
2011 Elements: Material Worlds, The Forum, Norwich
2011 Norfolk Open Studios 11, ZeroEast Studios, Norwich
2010 Seasons of the Spirit, St. Michael's Church, Beccles
2010 Lonely Arts Collective Exhibition '10, The Forum, Norwich
2010 Open Churches Festival, St. Mary's Church, Shotesham
2010 Dividing Lines, Stew Gallery, Norwich
2010 Elements: Man and the Environment, The Forum, Norwich
2009 MA Degree Show, NUCA, Norwich
2009 Lonely Arts Collective Exhibition '09, The Forum, Norwich
2009 Projections, Edinburg road Studio, Norwich (solo exhibition)

2009 Incubation, Unit 5, Norwich
2008 Exposure Two, St. Margarets Church, Norwich

2008 MAPS Summer Show, NUCA, Norwich
2008 Photographs, Norwich Arts Centre, Norwich
2008 Image Co-operative Exhibition, St. Margarets Church, Norwich
2008 Organised & curated Recycle, The Green Grocers, Norwich
2008 MAPS January Show, NUCA, Norwich
2007 Baz & Greg, Trinity Garage, Norwich (solo exhibition)
2007 Exposure, St. Margarets Church, Norwich
2007 Co-facilitated & curated Bangladesh to Norwich, Youth Initiative
2007 Traces of Reality, The Green Grocers, Norwich (solo exhibition)
2006 Configurations, The Green Grocers, Norwich (solo exhibition)
2006 Workshoped & curated Mental, Norfolk Youth Service
2005 Facilitated & curated Why can’t I be you, Norfolk Youth Service