Exhibition
Above, Below, Beyond - Janeanne Gilchrist
18 Nov 2017 – 24 Mar 2018
Cost of entry
Free
Address
- 92 Tay Street
- Perth
Scotland - PH2 8NS
- United Kingdom
The sea and the self: these are territories Janeanne Gilchrist explores and merges seductively in this exhibition of intricately composed and infinitely ambiguous sub-aquatic images.
About
Janeanne’s is a submerged world of spectral floating objects and mysterious seascapes, each seeking meaning and calling on us to find our own.
Free diving off the unpredictable coasts of Scotland, one breath at a time, Janeanne’s physical and creative element is sea water.
She forages for objects in the depths -a tangle of fishing net, a singed seaman’s sou'wester, discarded fish gut, a decomposing plastic bag - the thoughtlessly discarded cast-offs of fishermen and of man. She searches out subjects – the spawning seaweed, the mesmerizing alien glow of a jellyfish, the stone washed bones of a migratory bird.
Temperature, tide, time of year, weather, lunar cycles the unpredictable moods of the sea combine to create the elusive shape, the temporary touch and the momentary light, that create the sea-change she desires.
There is a natural fear and otherworldliness which is present in every image.
Janeanne also constructs balance capturing a sense of illusion and visual trickery common when below the surface.
Shot alone out in the sea in the period after her mother’s death, the photographs in Above, Below, Beyond are also infused with submerged grief and evasive, finely textured feeling: the ghostly vulnerability of objects and clothing, carrying the disintegrating memories of their former purpose.
Janeanne Gilchrist is a photographic artist and image-maker. She was born and brought up in Edinburgh and graduated from Napier University in 1996 with a BA (Honours) in photography and film.
This is her First solo exhibition following Retina Scottish International Photography festival in 2015 for which she won the 2016 JD Fergusson Arts Award.
