What Remains by Alex March

About

The China Shop is pleased to present What Remains, a solo exhibition by Alex March. What Remains is a continuation of March's ongoing investigation into the role of the family photograph, both as an object of identification and as a signifier of the sitter's context provoking speculation on the life of the referent outside the photograph. March's process begins with found photographs. In each of her pieces, she removes key identifying features of the image with a scalpel or chemically during hand developing leaving ambiguous white spaces. These spaces reference the gap between the original and its representation, playing on the relationship between photograph as object or copy and as image or representation. The making of a copy usually implies a devaluing of the original through a reduction of quality and value. Within the context of March's practice the making or manipulation of a copy elevates the original, the humble family ephemera to the status of Artwork. The title of the exhibition, What Remains references March's process of removal and the audiences ability to empathise with the clichéd impulse to relive remembered moments and embrace notions of identity derived from the family photographic archive. What prevails of the archetype offers a certain type of immortality which might remind the viewer of his own very personal mortality, death and life through the recognition of shared experience encouraged by the format of the family album. Alex March lives and works in London and received her Masters in Fine Art from Wimbledon College of Art in 2011. Recent exhibitions include Future Map 11, Zabludowicz Collection and the Crash Open Salon, Charlie Dutton Gallery, London. Alex March was featured in the Catlin Art Guide 2012.