In The Room

Ruan and Catalina, Tavistock Block, Aylesbury Estate, London  (from Behind The Brutal Facade) © Richard Ansett 2020

This image is of Ruan with his mother Catalina in the Taplow block of the Aylesbury Estate overlooking the notorious Wendover Tower for my latest series Beyond The Brutal Facade capturing the lives of the last tenants of the estate once labelled the most notorious in Britain.

There are many examples in art history of this trope "in which a figure stares out from an otherwise self-contained canvas drawing the viewer in".* 'Freedom From Want' captures Norman Rockwell's neighbour in the bottom right of the composition cheekily breaking the spell of the otherwise perfectly observed and terrifyingly heteronormative scene.

Free From Want - Norman Rockwell, 1943

Botticelli's conceit in inserting himself amongst the most important citizens of Florence in the Adoration of the Magi still has the desired effect of bringing a radical shift in perception literally and metaphorically whilst drawing us in to join the crowd to witness this monumental moment of history.

Adoration of the Magi, Sandro Botticelli 1476

It creates a fascinating jolt to the psyche, often this device is explained away as more of an invitation to the viewer to cross the divide and enter into the work but its a two way street. The subject is equally joining us in our reality across the void of time and space. Its unsettling but further the use of this tactic has another profound affect on me. It is an interruption in the trusted narrative the artist has worked so hard to weave; to break the spell we are creating. It invites us to question the reality that is so convincingly on display and therefore challenges the security of our worldview . It is a device that stimulates open and existential questions about the nature of our reality beyond the everyday human experience.

One of my techniques in my relationship with a sitter is to ask them to look into the lens and 'connect' to an otherwise unknown future audience and attempt to communicate silently the message they might wish to deliver. This image however is a wonderful synergy of accident and design, a rare defining moment of a spontaneous glance when I had begun to think the defining moment was dead.

*ArtnetNews - Katie White 11.26.2020 - Here are 3 things you might not know about 'Freedom From Want.'

Working in Series

I am drawn to working in series, not so much as photo essays but in a more 'Duane Michals' notion of multiple image sequence. The foundation being an analysis of the photograph as interruption of the timeline. There are inevitable similarities to film in so far as multiple still images when seen in contact sheet form can be interpreted as de-constructions of an event between two fixed points. But observing the static contact sheet of a Eadweard Muybridge collotype for instance, increases the level of scrutiny of each frame of the moving image otherwise observed in the original Zoopraxiscope as something, well, 'moving'. We are observing each interruption in the timeline as photographs in their own right but further it is an acknowledgement of multiple alternatives that lead up to and go beyond the nostalgic, and I would argue, dated notion of a singular and 'defining moment'.

Boys Playing on the Grass © Richard Ansett

Chance meeting © Duane Michals

Boxing: Open Hand. Plate 340 - Eadweard Muybridge