PAST CLUSTER P&P EXHIBITORS
The eclectic ranks of Cluster London’s past exhibitors feature an exciting, all-embracing scope of photographic practice. Comprising over 60 contemporary photographers, the work traverses an unshackled range of thematic photographs and prints.
From Luigi Qaurta’s series ‘Zoo’
From Tia Bannon’s ‘Last Resort’
One photographer, who’s work echos the tropes born in the New Topographics, is West London’s Tia Bannon. Her notable series, The Last Resort, finds beauty in the banal and the disused. The subject matter, in its colour and starkness, depicts the decaying vestiges of a community area, in what appears to be the American West.
In direct contrast to the landscape works by the early American pictorialist photographers, Bannon’s work substitutes the idyllic vistas and Edenic valleys for arid, corroding landscapes. Time seems to have upped and left, leaving a scorched, septic place, now uninhabited.
One image in the series depicts a bulletin board indicating the availability of furnished apartments in Bombay Beach. Herein lie a story and context, a way of deciphering the images in real-time. Bombay Beach is located in California, on the Salton Sea, and was once a popular getaway for beachgoers in the 80s. Over the years, the population declined, and the buildings rotted away. And before this, Bombay Beach was a popular beach destination for celebrities such as Frank Sinatra, the Beach Boys and Bing Crosby. The area was known for its luxury and pizzaz and a regular day at the beach would involve fishing, boating and waterskiing. Similarly, the North Shore area is largely derelict and connotes a time passed from the 60s.
From Tia Bannon’s ‘Last Resort’
From Tia Bannon’s ‘Last Resort’
Across Tia Bannon’s other works a documentary, or storytelling motif is apparent. Crowns is posited as an ongoing series investigating the strength and vitality of black barbershop culture, with all its merits of beauty, intelligence and integrity. Her photographs depict the interiors of barbershops, casting her lens on all the idiomatic details found within.
From Tia Bannon’s ‘Last Resort’
From Tia Bannon’s ‘Crowns’
Other commendable works include Robert Brunton and Jake Kehar Gill from the ‘Hot Sheet’ coalition. Brunton’s work delves into the visual relationship between nature and the man-made elements disseminated across the landscape. Reminiscent of Manufactured Landscapes by Edward Burtynsky, Brunton’s works often comprise of regimented, urban structures, often devoid of people. This effect of transience and impermanence creates coldly distinct landscapes — a comment on our collective relationship to modernity and architecture.
There’s a careful and measured approach to her photographs. The hazy, lulling colours and light create warmth between the artist and sitter. Bannon’s empathetic eye is apparent and works to build a rapport between the subject matter. Her gaze is contemplative throughout her oeuvre — there is no detectable hint of melancholy. The photographs read in a celebratory light, employing curiosity and kinship.
The work of Jake Kehar Gill comments on the physicality of the human body and the inherent limits of our physiology concerning posture, and that communication comes in different forms, particularly through the paralinguistic forms of communication.
From Luigi Qaurta’s series ‘Zoo’
Adding to the roster is the surrealist splendour of Luigi Qaurta, who’s work breathes life into strange, inanimate objects. The elegant black and white photographs launch the viewer into an illusory world of geometric form and surrealism. His series titled Zoo is an amalgamation of subject and place, in which the very context of each image relies solely upon the balance between the aforementioned elements — both are protagonists in all pictures. This harmonises our reading of the work. The interiors are minimalist and use architectural qualities to further placate and transport the viewer.
From Luigi Qaurta’s series ‘Zoo’
From Tia Bannon’s ‘Crowns’
From Luigi Qaurta’s series ‘Zoo’
From Tia Bannon’s ‘Crowns’
Thank you for reading,
Cluster Team & Kieran McMullan.