Wear the clay hat and sink to the mud...
UP TO YOUR NECK IN MUD is a photographic exhibition by Holly Birtles including images taken from an opera performance based on the Mesolithic findings of the submerged landscape - Doggerland. The work in the show presents backstage and rehearsal instances whereby members of the cast contemplate and practice their role as specific elements or proposed happenings. Elaborate props are made which represent the last wave, the Dogger mounds, the shifting ice and Mesolithic huts. Selected images depict teleport scenes. Teleportation and fragmentation of limbs presents a dual existence from rehearsal to mud.
Up to your neck in mud is closely linked to project ‘C1 Monsters’. C1 monsters refers to The C1 imray map which charts The Thames Estuary From Tilbury in Essex to Orfordness in Suffolk. The project consists of a journey which records key estuary points to both personal history and areas of visual intrigue. Utilising props produced and performances documented, the imagery is obscured and transformed into visceral monsters through photographic techniques, post production manipulations, 3D scans and layered sketches. The monsters vary in terms of location; the grotesque, humorous and bizarre these are reoccurring styles in which depict a symbolic tactile presence of the space visited.
In her work, Holly Birtles combines photography with collage, painting and sculpture to create expressionist and abstract images. Birtles begins her process by producing objects using clay and inflatables which she carefully covers in coats of paint, fine line drawings and graffiti. The items are then staged in still-life shoots or feature as props in portraitures. Utilising both digital and analogue methods, Birtles subjects the resulting photographs to a series of interventions including, gestural marking, obscurement of details, defacement of the print and collaging.
Each of these elements is introduced gradually in a thoughtful process of application and re-photographing. The act of re-photographing cancels any physical layers added to the surface of the images, resulting in tactile prints which are smooth to the touch. Through the use of various textured objects and painterly components Birtles creates a tension in the frame in which the tangible is at odds with the flatness of the photograph.
To help create her compositions Birtles often chooses to work with stage performers and fellow artists, asking them to pose with objects or while repeatedly reciting, singing or shouting the words to poems and theory texts and collected memories/stories. Provocative in nature, the texts help Birtles to elicit and inspire unanticipated reactions from her subjects. The continuous repetition of the words, akin to the act of re-photographing for the purpose of visual distortion, slowly chips away at their meaning and encourages the performers to eventually only respond to the sounds the words produce.
Throughout this exercise, Birtles records her subjects as they begin with a measured delivery of their texts and then, with each new articulation, shift to a more relaxed, playful and at times manic display of emotions. It is these, partly uncontrollable, exertions which are the primary focus of Birtles’ work. Whether through the depiction of her models or via her own vivid manipulations of the photographs, Birtles prompts her viewers to question their own fixed preconceptions and modes of behaviour and take part in the performative process unfolding before them.
Thank you to Holly Birtles for producing an outstanding inaugural show for us at Xxijra Hii.
Editions available by enquiry - [email protected]
Warning, flashing image below.
Wear the clay hat and sink to the mud...
UP TO YOUR NECK IN MUD is a photographic exhibition by Holly Birtles including images taken from an opera performance based on the Mesolithic findings of the submerged landscape - Doggerland. The work in the show presents backstage and rehearsal instances whereby members of the cast contemplate and practice their role as specific elements or proposed happenings. Elaborate props are made which represent the last wave, the Dogger mounds, the shifting ice and Mesolithic huts. Selected images depict teleport scenes. Teleportation and fragmentation of limbs presents a dual existence from rehearsal to mud.
Up to your neck in mud is closely linked to project ‘C1 Monsters’. C1 monsters refers to The C1 imray map which charts The Thames Estuary From Tilbury in Essex to Orfordness in Suffolk. The project consists of a journey which records key estuary points to both personal history and areas of visual intrigue. Utilising props produced and performances documented, the imagery is obscured and transformed into visceral monsters through photographic techniques, post production manipulations, 3D scans and layered sketches. The monsters vary in terms of location; the grotesque, humorous and bizarre these are reoccurring styles in which depict a symbolic tactile presence of the space visited.
In her work, Holly Birtles combines photography with collage, painting and sculpture to create expressionist and abstract images. Birtles begins her process by producing objects using clay and inflatables which she carefully covers in coats of paint, fine line drawings and graffiti. The items are then staged in still-life shoots or feature as props in portraitures. Utilising both digital and analogue methods, Birtles subjects the resulting photographs to a series of interventions including, gestural marking, obscurement of details, defacement of the print and collaging.
Each of these elements is introduced gradually in a thoughtful process of application and re-photographing. The act of re-photographing cancels any physical layers added to the surface of the images, resulting in tactile prints which are smooth to the touch. Through the use of various textured objects and painterly components Birtles creates a tension in the frame in which the tangible is at odds with the flatness of the photograph.
To help create her compositions Birtles often chooses to work with stage performers and fellow artists, asking them to pose with objects or while repeatedly reciting, singing or shouting the words to poems and theory texts and collected memories/stories. Provocative in nature, the texts help Birtles to elicit and inspire unanticipated reactions from her subjects. The continuous repetition of the words, akin to the act of re-photographing for the purpose of visual distortion, slowly chips away at their meaning and encourages the performers to eventually only respond to the sounds the words produce.
Throughout this exercise, Birtles records her subjects as they begin with a measured delivery of their texts and then, with each new articulation, shift to a more relaxed, playful and at times manic display of emotions. It is these, partly uncontrollable, exertions which are the primary focus of Birtles’ work. Whether through the depiction of her models or via her own vivid manipulations of the photographs, Birtles prompts her viewers to question their own fixed preconceptions and modes of behaviour and take part in the performative process unfolding before them.
Thank you to Holly Birtles for producing an outstanding inaugural show for us at Xxijra Hii.
Editions available by enquiry - [email protected]
Warning, flashing image below.
Xxijra Hii
Enclave 4
50 Resolution Way,
London SE8 4AL
Xxijra Hii is a member of New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) and the Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC).