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Bruce Rae / Silvered Surfaces.
Bruce Rae will be giving a talk on his work on Saturday 4th November at 4pm at the gallery. Tickets £3.00
Vintage Prints and Saltprints.
Bruce Rae trained as a photographer at Birmingham college of Art between 1966-68, in the early 70's he attended the Royal College of Art where he attained his MA. After working briefly as a commercial photographer Rae dedicated his time to fine art photography, and became Head of Photography at the University of East London in 1996.
The work to be shown at the re-launch of the enlarged Battle Independent photographers gallery, from 31st October is a retrospective of the still lives of Bruce Rae. There are a total of about seventy prints exhibited. Fifty of these were made on manufactured silver gelatin photographic paper and date mainly from the late nineteen eighties to the mid nineteen nineties. The subject matter is flora, however, David Lillington writing in the October 1990 edition of "Arts Review" observes that "certainly they are not about gardening." Rae is not concerned with a Linnaean attempt to describe or classify, but uses flora as a vehicle to examine his own preoccupations with mortality- "I am interested in the point at which things emerge and then disappear; in the narrow span of existence between birth and death." Again from Arts Review " The roses are open to interpretations which give them human attributes. It is possible to see them drooping, weeping, being young, middle aged or dying."
In a formal sense Rae's work concerns itself with balance, which is composition within the rectangle and tonality, which is a way of describing light. He believes that formal values are inseparable from the heart of his work.
He trained at Birmingham School of Photography in the mid nineteen sixties and at the Royal College of Art in the early nineteen seventies. His training at Birmingham was based on Commercial practice and believes without doubt that craft skills are central to any articulate Art practice. He uses wooden cameras of up to 10 inch by 8 inch formats and still uses traditional wet darkroom procedures.
The silver gelatin prints displayed here are in the main unrepeatable, most were made on a Kodak paper called Ektalure. Rae's choice of materials contributes greatly to the distinct qualities of his work and most of his favoured choices are no longer available.
During the mid nineteen nineties the fear that a lot of materials were disappearing because of the changeover to digital imaging, led Rae to experiment with early nineteenth century technology and the making of his own papers. His espousal of such processes as platinum and especially salt printing was not due to simplistic Luddism, but was a desire to continue in the production of images that completely satisfied aesthetic needs. To quote Robin Muir, curator of the Lord Snowdon retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery and picture librarian to Vogue Magazine in reference to Rae' salt prints, "This early Victorian process, all but banished into history, has it's roots in the earliest days of photography. A difficult one to master, Rae's pursuit of perfection allows for a low success rate; only a quarter of prints produced will convince him to sign and add them to his editions. The most obvious manifestation of this painstaking art, apart from the rich tones, is a sparkling texture, a subtle barely perceptible gleaming, quite in sympathy with the photographer's own brooding sensibility, enlivened nonetheless with a twinkling good humour."
A dozen of the prints in this exhibition are salt prints. They are small ,four by five inch masterpieces in miniature. They are images of shells, but their subject is form. This particular set of prints has been made in the past six months and a portfolio of them is featured in the October edition of Ag. Magazine.
Collections
Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Bibliotheque Nationale Paris
Citi Bank, Nashville, USA, Ralph Lauren,
Anderson PR Headquarters, Newcastle
Kelly Hoppen, Arden & Anstruther,
Texaco Collection of British Art, London
Terry Jones
Donna Karen
Nina Campbell
Selected Exhibitions
Michael Hoppen Gallery, London - Silver gelatin, flower prints in the print room,
in conjunction with a Blossfeldt exhibition in the main gallery, 1996
Michael Hoppen Gallery, London - Flower/Fungi - Saltprints, 1998
Karen Howes Gallery, London - Saltprints / silver gelatin prints of flowers, 2000
Arden & Anstruther, Petworth, May 2005
Silvered Surfaces opens 31st October and continues - 21st December. Gallery open Tuesday - Saturday 10 am - 5pm. Admission Free. Or by appointment on 01424 775650. Lucy Bell/Geraldine Alexander. at IPG 3 The Old Brewery, Old Brewery Yard, Just off the High Street, Battle, East Sussex. TN33 OAF. www.ipgbattle.com. e-mail, info@ipgbattle.com