IT’S DARK WITHOUT IT’S LIGHT WITHIN

ASYLUM ART GALLERY, 21 Clifton Street, Wolverhampton, WV3 0TZ
24th March - 10th April
Launch event: Thursday 24th March, 7-9pm
Artist talk: Friday 1st April, 4pm

Exhibition statement

O.G. Rejlander, a Victorian portrait photographer, is widely considered the ‘father of art photography’, and was based in Wolverhampton from 1842 to 1862, with a studio on Darlington Street (now demolished). He often photographed members of the community in Wolverhampton, from the street, from theatre, as part of his studio practice, and was known for his expressive portraiture, and allegorical scenes, his work having strong links to painting.

Artist Siân Macfarlane has undertaken a period of research into his work and relationship to Wolverhampton, funded by the Arts Council. Through research in the archives of Wolverhampton and the Victoria & Albert Museum, which houses a number of his prints and glass negatives from the Royal Photographic Society collection, she has been exploring the historical processes that Rejlander used in his work, including wet plate collodion, as well as related practices within analogue photography. This research has been the starting point for her own photographic work in response to Rejlander’s imagery, photographing the people who contribute to the creative life of the city.

The exhibition, comprising of prints and ephemera, will offer an exploration of Rejlander’s visual practice, the photographic practices he engaged in, and the recurrent motifs to be found in his plates and prints. These visual ideas are invoked in the present, through re-staging and re-enactment of the photographs, with an exploration of the places of Wolverhampton where he made these images.

With thanks to artists Jo Gane and Almudena Romero for support in the wet plate collodion process, and Danii Pickin, Patsy Wesson, Leanne O’Connor, and Ewan Johnston.