Off Camera is a survey of photographic works which have been drawn or painted upon, animated, collaged or made into sculpture. These works set aside photography's 'normal' conventions, cast off the limits of the medium and rely on invention when a straight representation of the physical world fails to meet their needs or expectations.The photography is neither pristine nor conventional. In much of the work, the photo themselves are 'wrong', taken with homemade cameras made from discarded objects, printed with dirty negatives, pulled from a common photo booth, torn or found. Some works 'fix' the print, highlighting an area with line or hand-colouring that may be out of focus or need extra attention. Other pieces remove crucial details and focal points entirely or use mark-making across the surface of the print to obscure an event of revel an imagine pattern or interior landscape.
Constraints of the print are ignored and the artist takes a variety of liberties including extending the edges of the image by adding on paper, drawing or painting, collaging with other materials or creating a new, subtly transformed image by combining two or more photographs. Select works also free the photo from its two-dimensions by folding, cutting and shaping prints into sculptures, while others interrupt the image's stillness through animation.
In total, the works challenge our vision by making visible that which is not apparent, posit the impossible, confuse genres, subvert photography's traditions and factual claims, and manipulate reality and meaning.
