BRUNDYN + GONSALVES is pleased to present SeeingEye, a group exhibition that focuses on the stylistic and conceptual bond between a selection of painting and photography.
The complex relationship between imitative painting and generative photography has waxed and waned since photography’s inception; each medium taking it’s turn to influence the other more. Assumed characteristic differences between the two have all but fallen away with artists explicitly pushing the boundaries of medium specificity over the last four decades. Indeed painting’s aesthetic is now so inextricably linked to photography’s that reflecting on the one often leads to a deeper understanding of the other.
Photography has a perceived indexicality (a connection to the physical world) whereas painting tends towards being a stand alone, uniquely mediated product. These days, the indexicality of the photograph has been replaced by digital’s complete control and manipulability. There is also the temporality of creating and viewing photography and painting. The less immediate nature of the latter (how long it takes to produce a painting, and perhaps also to view it), must be compared to the immediacy of the rapid ‘click’ of a camera and the instantaneous recognition inherent in viewing it. When these characteristics begin to overlap in painting the supposed truthfulness of a photograph is unscrambled, prolonging our consideration and slowing down our habitual ingestion of the photographic image.
Although at first glance SeeingEye seems to be simply about photographs that mimic the style of paintings and vice versa, the exhibition is rather intended to stimulate further debate around the two mediums’ status of representation and value. Spanning from painting that draws on photographic tropes such as blur, pixilation or hyperrealism, through to photographs that directly reference traditional painting subjects or task themselves with exploring the subconscious, SeeingEye offers moments of overlap.
Participating artists: Sanell Aggenbach, Roger Ballen, Zander Blom, Alex Emsley, Matthew Hindley, Karin Preller, Andrew Putter, Matty Roodt and Chad Rossouw.
Curated by Leigh-Anne Niehaus.
