Satisfied?

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Girl with Friends on a Sunny Day

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Portrait of Long Lost Dreams

 

14 June 2019
A1 Photographic prints

 

Polaroid pictures, guitar lessons and your mobile phone. Like many things in this world, this work is not meant to satisfy you. Whether we realize it or not, everyone seeks what is lasting and authentic in their lives. However, despite our constant longing for this, we settle for things that pacify us temporarily and satisfy us only for a short time. We are fooled into believing that happiness can be commodified into product after product in the hope that it will fill our lives with true joy and satisfaction, only to become disillusioned and move onto the next best thing. 

 

These photographs draw from and imitate the 17th century painters, Rembrandt (Self Portrait 1659), Vermeer (Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window 1657) and Pieter Claesz (A Still Life with Roemer, a Crab and a Peeled Lemon, 1643) and the themes that came across in their work. Contemporary artists such as Fiona Pardington and her still life works as well as Buck Ellison and his use of staged portraits are an inspiration for the use of contemporized imagery. With references to popular culture paired with the features of traditional vanitas and dutch paintings, questions are raised on life’s temporality, what is real versus what is fake and how we are tricked into believing our desires can be commodified into objects. 

 

Like many things in this world, this work is not meant to satisfy you, but ask you the question;

 

...Are you Satisfied?

 

As you enter or exit, feel free to collect a one of a kind photograph to take home with you. 

 

To either discard or digest at your own will. 

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