Theatrum Pittoricum

“It seems, that is, that the single canvas has no reality outside the unmoving theatrum pittoricum to which each is consigned, or at least that they acquire all their enigmatic meaning only in this ideal space”
Giorgio Agamben, ‘The Man Without Content’

Theatrum Pittoricum brings together a group of young artists and post graduate art students whose concerns are questions of the staging and reality of the artwork. Alan McQuillan’s sculptural work is derived of a Duchampian approach to object and the ‘truth’ of the found object or readymade. The work wrestles with a concern for the nature of truth; not merely a matter of truth and untruth but perhaps more the power and energy involved in the architecture of lying. Sarah Michael’s digital photographic practise draws on a broad interest in the seductive veracity of the photograph when combined with the directorial power of digital media. The series, ‘Storytelling’, explores images from folk tales set in contemporary environments. The distortion of photographic imagery is a theme carried through to the work of Suzanne Moxhay whose practise involves the construction of environments from found images and then re-photographing these landscapes. The idealised, whilst somewhat apocalyptic, images exist in a space between various intersecting fields of representation whilst embodying a reality of their own. Dzenana Hozic practice deploys photographic representations of empty urban landscapes, which are pregnant with the potential dramas they could host. Richard Thomas uses a variety of digital media in a practice that incorporates animation, photography, sculpture and printmaking. He is interested in the play between registers to establish narrative and pathos. In that which is staged, a presence is felt beyond the pronounced – a culprit, a reason, a meaning, a truth; the work presented can insist and structure this hope.