Current Review(s)
Student Review: Figments
Harris Steinman at AVAHarris Steinman is well known for his series of landscapes titled 'Kirstenbosch beyond words' (2005) and his personal nightscapes exhibited at the Cape Town Month of Photography in 2012. He is also known for exhibiting at the Youngblood Arts and Culture development in 2013, where he photographed the interplay between light and shade, structure, color and patterns of flora and landscapes. As a self-taught photographer, he has developed photographic techniques which he has explored over a period of 30 years. This means the development of photographic skills and flaws are evident in his work. He started with black and white and later switched to color slides. He was then an early convert to digital photography.
06 June 2014 - 06 June 2014
Listings(s)
Figments
Harris Steinman at AVAHarris Steinman’s evocative series of photographs of his childhood town reflects his disconnection of memories from their reality, capturing these surreal images at nightfall. ‘Figments’ sees the artist set forth on a moving and intimate journey in an attempt to heal and to make sense of the sub-conscious influence that predicates his current state of being. Secretly claiming these images from a distance, Steinman eerily translates his apprehension to dismantle the past. He probes the space of the imagination and one’s own perception of what is 'real'. These mundane neighbourhood scenes come alive with the sense of a haunting presence hidden from sight. For a moment, we are allowed to see into the inaccessible and private spaces of the artist’s own struggle to accept and let go of that which has past.
The artists writes that, ‘I am recognizing and accepting that loss is irrecoverable, that I can never return. I am trying to comprehend that past disappointments, suffering, and melancholy, are meant to mature and transfigure, and shift me. These images are my catalysts – figments to move me from the dark to un-dark, to kindle my transformation.’
06 June 2014 - 06 June 2014