Tracey Derrick
Current Review(s)
One in Nine
Tracey Derrick at AVADocumentary photographer Tracey Derrick has spent the past twenty years photographing women in the struggle, sex workers, immigrant families and their children, religious ceremonies, war torn Mozambique, sangomas, farm labourers, and women in prisons. In doing so, she has earned herself a place on such shows as ‘Africa Remix’ and in books like the prestigious overview of 20 contemporary photographers, ‘Blink’.
Success came, but Derrick’s aim was always more about raising consciousness about issues she felt to be important and insufficiently recognized. Working in classic black-and-white, and utilizing the full frame provided by the lens – i.e., ‘no cropping’ has become something of a mantra for her – Derrick has always undertaken all her own developing and printing. To get her shots, she hopped on army planes in Mozambique, drove through the back roads of Namibia, and wielding her camera, waded waist-deep into icy waves off a Cape Town beach to photograph a dawn baptism.
18 October 2010 - 12 November 2010
Listings(s)
Solo Exhibitions
Tracey Derrick, Elsabe Milandri and Lynette Bester at AVA'Stalking the Familiar'
Lynette Bester explores materiality and meaning through a body of predominantly sculptural pieces that hinge on the notion that meaning can be challenged by subjecting objects to a process which not only physically deconstructs them but also de-contextualizes them from their expected environments. In 'Stalking the Familiar' Bester aims to expose ordinary experience through interrogating the familiar and banal. Her strategy challenges the idea of the artist as isolated genius in a contemporary society, and invites others not only to view, but to participate in her process.
'One in Nine'
"One in nine women will contract breast cancer in South Africa. I am therefore the 'one in nine'. This exhibition showcases portraiture - including self-portraiture and that of eight women who too were diagnosed with the illness … This story is about medical body transformations, changes and challenges and the fluidity of our identity … It is fundamentally a story of survival, of celebration and the depth of the human spirit." Tracey Derrick, July 2010
Tracey Derrick employs the Long gallery with a photographic exploration of breast cancer, its treatment and survival.
'Diagram for Change'
Elsabé Milandri presents a mixed media body of work that explores the landscape of contemporary femininity with intimacy and irony. Working on paper, diagrammatic representation meets journal, revealing ambiguous narratives, sometimes subversive, sometimes poetic. Milandri's subject matter includes infants, conservation, BP, toys and family.
To be opened by Liza Grobler
18 October 2010 - 12 November 2010
'One in Nine'
Tracey Derrick at AVATracey Derrick employs the Long gallery with a photographic exploration of breast cancer, its treatment and survival. In her statement, Derrick explains: 'I was diagnosed with breast cancer in May 2008 and responded in part to this diagnosis photographically. One in nine women will contract breast cancer in South Africa. I am therefore the "one in nine". This exhibition showcases portraiture – including self-portraiture and that of eight women who too were diagnosed with the illness. Through the photographic medium – they and I – attempted to make sense of a world which somehow did not look quite the same as before. This story is about medical body transformations, changes and challenges and the fluidity of our identity. As is evident in the photographs, we learnt to embrace and live with death. It is fundamentally a story of survival, of celebration and the depth of the human spirit'.
18 October 2010 - 12 November 2010
