18 January – 25 February
One in the Other is pleased to present a solo exhibition of photographs by Anna Mossman.
Anna Mossman’s new photographic works have clarity and mystery. They appear to the viewer with a strong visual presence whilst raising questions about their origins. Mossman engages a unique process, setting the time consuming activity of meticulous drawing in relation to the instantaneous photographic moment. Herein lies the singularity of the work: drawings, made by hand, often over extended periods of time, exist solely to be photographed and then printed as a negative.
Through drawing Mossman carves out a territory for the handmade, the diaristic, the doodle and then subjects this to a mechanical eye: the apparatus of the camera. The resulting photograph distances itself from the drawing, existing only as a negative print. Reversing the drawing, casting a glance towards the origins of the photograph, Mossman’s premise migrates then returns, bringing works of finesse and delicacy with ambiguous sovereignty. The works ‘Lap 2’ and ‘Horizontal Lines’ appear as landscapes from space, or cartographic x-rays. ‘Graph Paper (ii)’ is a handmade rendering of warm-toned coloured squares on graph paper that, once printed negatively, yields a cold-toned counterpart. The order of colours is repeatedly interrupted by mistakes made during the laborious process of making, confusing the pattern and creating waves of interference. ‘Graph Paper (iv)’ is the sister piece that attempts to return ‘Graph Paper (ii)’ to the original drawing using the same process of reversal, but from a drawing handmade ‘negatively’.
The photographic drawing works on show have evolved from the series, Znvirxzm Khbxsl, 2001-2004, where Mossman took the concept of the photographic negative and used it as an activating principle in another medium – the written word. The works ‘Evening’, 2002 and ‘Morning’, 2003, show sections of a text written by the artist, where she translated parts of the novel ‘American Psycho’, (Bret Easton Ellis, 1991), word by word, into a ‘negative sense’. The inverted text explores the subjective territory where imagination and decision making come to the fore in spite of a rigidly defined premise. By photographing fragments of text the written word is returned to the generating idea, the site of the photographic.
Anna Mossman has exhibited internationally and in the UK. Select shows include Galerie Lelong, New York, Galerie Almine Rech, Paris, Lisson Gallery, London, Hamiltons, London, Kunsthalle, Baden Baden, Germany and Kettles Yard, Cambridge.
Lap 2 2005
C-print on aluminium,
1220 x 1520 mm
Horizontal Lines 2006
C-print on aluminium,
1208 x 1520 mm