Vivian Cooper Smith: Anchorage
October 2013
Anchorage is a new photographic exhibition by Vivian Cooper Smith showing from this Wednesday at Edmund Pearce Gallery.
A graduate of the University of Western Australia with an Honours degree in Fine Arts, Smith has exhibited regularly around Australia, garnering recognition for his original and conceptual approach to photography.
Anchorage is an intimate collection of missing parts, unsure surfaces and black holes in the ground that combine to confound the viewer and leave them wondering – am I missing something, is something missing or is the missing the something and so not really missing?
In this latest work, Smith continues his investigation into selfhood and the construction of identity. He draws on the medieval practice of living in an anchorage whereby a person seeking solitude and communion with God would wall themselves up inside a room adjoining a church. To them it was necessary to withdraw from the world to better understand it.
Smith considers this premise in his new body of work. Exploring removal, retreat and shifting subjectivities he poses the question – what is the world without me and what am I without the world?
Vivian Cooper Smith: Anchorage shows at Edmund Pearce Gallery, Level 2, Nicholas Building, 37 Swanston St, Melbourne, from October 9 to November 2.
Opening night, Thursday October 10, from 6pm.
Images
1. Vivian Cooper Smith – Clare
2. Vivian Cooper Smith – Magnolia
3. Vivian Cooper Smith – Self-Portrait
4. Vivian Cooper Smith – Anchorage
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