Glare: Kim Coleman & Jenny Hogarth
22 May – 27 June 2009

Video making has an inherent connection with light. For this exhibition of new commissioned video works, Kim Coleman & Jenny Hogarth focus on making and destroying the effects of light.

Coleman & Hogarth’s collaborative practice places a special emphasis on the participatory and performative aspects of art practice. They work with video and more specifically light, as a malleable and transient material to create immersive installations and sculptural objects. Their performances extend the collaborative relationship further, with audience participation at times essential to their execution, bringing a degree of spontaneity and improvisation to staged events. Relationships between the artificial and the natural are an ongoing area of interest and in Glare this is investigated through an exploration of the performativity of people and technology.

The combination of props and projections in Glare suggest the set of a fashion shoot. By exposing the mechanics of production, the artists allow the exchange between camera and subject to be examined. Objects under the glare of the camera appear to ‘perform’ as attention is drawn to the supporting props disrupting the usual hierarchies that exist between, subject, camera and background.

The choreographed installation of projected videos explore a range of visual effects and processes achieved through the manipulation of mirrors, light, repetitive processes and movement. The artists playfully remind us that even in a seemingly controlled environment, chance, circumstance and interaction all have their part to play.

As with their performances, the exhibition features elements of both the prepared and the unpredicted - disclosure and concealment - allowing ideas and potential from both to emerge. The works circumspectly unravel the relationship between the camera, its subject and its maker through various techniques of disclosure.

Glare demonstrates Coleman & Hogarth’s interest in the interplay between the controlled and the contrived to test if and where elements of either may reside.

Kim Coleman (born 1976, lives in London) and Jenny Hogarth (born 1979, lives in Edinburgh) have been working together since 2003. Coleman studied BA (Hons) Drawing and Painting at Edinburgh College of Art and graduated from the MA at Chelsea College of Art and Design in 2008. Hogarth studied BA (Hons) Sculpture at Edinburgh College of Art and graduates from the MFA at Glasgow School of Art this year. Recent solo exhibitions include Act Natural at Picture This, Bristol, Nought to Sixty (A performance with the Boyle Family) at ICA, London and Timebank at Associates, London.