JO SCICLUNA

When Our Horizons Meet

Photography is often pigeonholed as a documentation of the past, this notion imparted by the tension that exists between the subject captured and the present context in which it sits.

The apparent disjunction between the literally static quality of the photographic medium, and operative role of the viewer is the subject of exploration and subversion for photographer Jo Scicluna in her most recent exhibition When Our Horizons Meet, currently showing at Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP), Fitzroy. Scicluna works to defy the fixed state of the photograph, by combining her photographs with mixed media and collage elements, to create what she calls “a live index”, hereby elevating the image into an interactive realm.

Scicluna is adamant that her works do not cross into the realm of collage, as the restraint demonstrated in her employment of layering or cutting photographs and Perspex glass work in harmony with traditional photography, in the fundamental manipulation of light and dark. Shadows within the works are the manifestation of this interplay between the past and the present, as well as working to bind collage to the medium of photography, and bringing it to life. The various, yet blatantly nondescript landscape plains that compose the majority of her foundational images, are ruptured through common geometric interjections in the form of elevated discs, cut out from other prints of her photographs, or sheets of cut Perspex glass layered over the surface of the landscape.

The space between the foundational surface, and whatever rupturing device is placed over the top, works to cast shadows upon the primary photographic layer. Shadows within the works may shift according to the context they are placed in, Scicluna acknowledging common variables such as sunlight, artificial light, and the presence of other inanimate objects or people. The acknowledgment of these interactions unavoidably forms a dynamic relationship between the artwork, the viewer, the past and the present.

An heir of contemplation is palpable as one enters into the gallery space, perhaps induced by the modulated colour palette of the sepia and monochromatic prints, complimented by the calming white cube space of CCP. This concord however, is no mistake, as Scicluna revels in the cohesion of chance and choice typified within the medium of photography. Scicluna strives to harness these artifices within her works, even continuing this engagement by surveying their relentless presence beyond her choices, such as the codependence that exists between an artwork and the wall upon which it sits. In using open frames- some with one side of the frame removed, some without glass, and others without a frame entirely, Scicluna opens up to the vulnerability that prevails after a work is completed, as she essentially allows the context to be the final framing device of these works.

Whilst the series resonates openness towards subjectivity, there remains an autobiographical element that drives this exhibition.  In working closely with the landscape captured, actually a recent acquisition of Scicluna’s family, she explores her own conception of what it means to be present, or home. However, in being deliberately presented as a somewhat generic coastal landscape, she invites one to not only cast their shadow upon the works, but also their metaphysical reflections.

Exhibition Dates: 3 April- 19 May 2013

Article Published: Mildred.co (Audio book)