Traces of Existence
Sarah Gallear
Traces Of Existence The images in this collection lead us into a fragmented border where a conversation between human structures and the landscape of Warrington, Cheshire takes place. Viewing Sarah’s work challenges our understanding of the intersection between human life and the environment. The work poses this deep questioning with sensitivity and quietness. Beneath the strange beauty Sarah portrays, lie disturbing questions about the relationship of humankind and the natural world. We consider clouds in conversation with boats, reflecting shifting borders of action, reaction, and consequences. We become immersed in a golden bedecked field cradling the intrusion of an abandoned table. Does humankind have the final word in the encounter with the landscape? The portrayal of a brutalist concrete structure seems to dissolve back into the landscape as plant life sends up resurgent blades of defiance, the image depicts this paradoxical question. Sarah skilfully exploits the small intimate scale of Instax square film and multiple exposures with confidence. Accidental colour marks caused by chemical leakage from the process create exciting accents.
By combining this approach with other techniques such as cyanotypes and chemigrams, we are invited to explore beneath layers, deciphering semi obscure imagery and so unearth a narrative of multiple life histories. Sarah manages to map the landscape in a way that leaves us signposts to follow and yet moments of being lost and disoriented about how we feel and what we think of these traces of life. In her Artist Statement she poignantly writes: “I find myself looking for the unloved objects and locations..” It is that unique focus which leaves her audience experiencing both moments of despair and hope. The story of her landscape is being reframed, retold, and saved from obliteration and we are invited into this space with her. Esther Ward
Traces and Trails Gates, fences, tape and posts - barriers to keep animals in and to keep people out. Old, abandoned, man-made frames litter the fields. Nature emboldened and strong fills the gaps and envelops and embraces the lonesome remnants of a former life. Droplets of light begin to shimmer across the tips of the green blades of grass as billowing, blowy clouds climb the cerulean skyscape. Industry towers beyond the trees, exhaling minute particles from its lungs into the virgin sky. The canal, laid bare, lolls lazily onwards, no longer bearing the weight of its freight. The daisies raise their heads skywards, the sun scattering its rays without prejudice. Unseen eyes observe the duel between man and Nature. Both co-existing, not always in harmony. The judge and jury is of no consequence. Jo Hanna
Traces of Existence by Sarah Gallear, Esther Ward and Jo Hanna First Published in Great Britain in 2021 by Paul Gotts Copyright © Sarah Gallear, Esther Ward and Jo Hanna 2021 The moral rights of the authors have been asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission of the author. http://www.tracesofexistence.co.uk