So please do come and join us for what will be a fantastic week of exhibitions, talks, books and of course, amazing photographs!
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Ishiuchi Miyako, Mother's #39, 2002
C-type print, printed later and framed in a hand made black frame with museum glass. Accompanied by a signed and editioned label. Paper size: 150 x 100 cm. Edition 3/5Ishiuchi Miyako's 'Mother' series is a deeply personal exploration of the often complicated yet deep connection between a mother and her daughter. In 2002 Ishiuchi began documenting her mothers possessions and parts of her body that had undergone a trauma, to process her feelings about their intricate relationship and her death.These intricacies reveal themselves in this moving series. Each precious object of her mother’s is carefully photographed, revealing subtle details that bring to light clues of her personality. Some haunting while others are incredibly soft and vulnerable, they all reveal traces of her. Strands of hair in a comb, lipstick with the shape of her lips freshly engraved in them, and pieces of her lingerie that look as if they still hold the shape of her imagined body become portraits of her mother.Ishiuchi's commemoration of her mother is an honest depiction of the different sides that live within a complex woman. ‘Mother’ uncovers Ishiuchi’s process of grieving her lost relationship with her mother, her death, the tender, often hidden moments of motherly love, and the essence of life captured through memories and objects. -
“There are no secrets in this house. Where there’s a secret, she says, there’s shame - and shame is something we can do without.”
— Claire Keegan
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Siân Davey, The Garden V, 2022
C-print on Fuji Maxima paper. Paper size: 80 x 96 cmAt the start of 2021, Siân Davey and her son Luke decided to rewild the abandoned land behind her home and create a garden. Working through a moment of personal crisis, and at a time when the rest of the world was experiencing intense and unprecendented turmoil, the garden developed into a kind of therapeutic space. In the summer, when the seeds had germinated into a mesmeric fields of flowers, she began to take photographs of the people who came to visit.At a time when many were reevaluating their relationship with personal space and freedom, the garden attracted people 'seduced by colour, bees and love' as Davey puts it. She created a devotional space, in which people feel able to express themselves through her photography. The Garden called in the local community, it became a plae to express yearning, joy and connectedness. Everyone who entered had a different story, each unfolding in the garden, becaming apart of it and each other."Everyone has a place in our garden. I am the garden. Those who enter are the garden. Without distinction, without separation."
- Siân Davey
The Garden series was shortlisted for the Prix Pictet 2023. -
The Garden film by Siân Davey
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THE TENDER COUPLE
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Monsieur Roussel, Untitled, Late 1940s
Signed verso. Unique vintage hand coloured silver gelatin print. Paper size: 14.5 x 10 cmWe know very little about Monsieur and Madame Rousell. Their intimate relationship though is aptly illustrated here by the tender and obsessive way that they collaborated to produce this extraordinary volume of private photographs. Their consensual foray into an ‘admirational’ cornucopia of bloomers, nature, interiors, holidays mixed with rude colour, are wonderful in their exuberant frankness. So often, these private tropes were destroyed by other family members and oft referred to as ‘their dirty little secrets’, but in the hands and control of an innocent and talented artist, such as Monsieur Roussell, the birth of another member of the Art-brute movement has been discovered.These photographs, mostly unique and all hand coloured, were made between 1932 and 1954 in France. Even during the war, some of the images were made outside in the country, en plein air. Each is signed but no location is marked. But also discovered were many travel brochures and letters and folders in the same collection, indicating that they travelled extensively in France and made the pictures whilst on these holidays and outings. Mr Roussell seems to have not only obsessed with the selection of bloomers and his dear wife would dress in – but also her hair colours, the ribbons and shoes, hand bags and scarves she wore. He was as dedicated as any good stylist would be today and his fashion sensibilities were without question much enjoyed by his partner, Madame Rousell. The tender fetishism apparent in many of the photographs, seem to be always infused with a lightness and with theatrical humour. Her willingness to engage with this activity for so long is also a testament to their dedication and the obvious joy Monsieur Rousell took in hand colouring every centimetre of his wife’s body in gaudy and brilliant colours.These are unique and wonderful photographs and are a unique tribute to a devoted artist whose colourful relationship with his wife, married with an avant-garde bent for unusual fashion, make for a wonderful example of outsider -art.- Michael Hoppen -
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Masahisa Fukase, From Window, printed by the artist in 1974, 1960
Artist's estate stamp verso. 32 vintage silver gelatin prints. Paper size: 25.4 x 20.3 cm | 30.4 x 20.3 cmA entire wall of the booth will be dedicated to a group of 32 unique photographs by the late Japanese photographer, Masahisa Fukase. Titled From Window, the series is the result of the obsessional fascination Fukase had with photographing his wife, Wanibe, during the summer of 1973. Alongside this magnificent installation of photographs, we will be offering clients their last chance to purchase a copy of the limited-edition book, Masahisa Fukase, From Window, published by Guiding Light.
"Shot each morning from the window of their apartment on the fourth floor of a sprawling suburban housing complex, Fukase captured Wanibe in the seconds as she was leaving their home to start out for her day job at a gallery in Tokyo. This instant became a ritualised moment of encounter between the couple, facing each-other across the threshold presented by the day ahead, with one foot in the home they shared and the other facing out towards a world that lay beyond the confines of their life together. The departure is punctuated by an exchange of glances, the expectant directness of her gaze towards the room that she is leaving behind in wordless dialogue with the camera that waits for her above. Beseeching from beneath a parasol, insouciant in a skirt suit, by turns ecstatic, disgruntled, disdainful and amused; these photographs show the progress of days reflected in Yoko’s changing face. Her expressiveness animates each shot, the frame and focus of each picture determined by her poses and centred on her face. Fukase’s cropping allows for little sense of time or place to emerge from the background of grainy asphalt, with the series’ formal constraints allowing each day to be defined by Wanibe’s appearance — how she looks, and how she responds to being looked at. The calendar’s passage unfolds in the undulations of Wanibe’s wardrobe, as knee-high boots give way to sandals and the suit jacket is cast off in favour of a halterneck, whilst the temporality of their relationship follows a less linear trajectory through these daily performances."
Excerpt from, From Window. Text by Lucy Fleming-Brown
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