FLESH - An exhibition of photography by Hamish Broadbent
Exhibitions, United Kingdom, London, 11 May 2010
PHOTOGRAPHER HAMISH BROADBENT MAKES DOUBLE
UK DEBUT WITH FLESH, FICTION & NON-FICTION

Photographer Hamish Broadbent is to mark his UK exhibition debut with two
consecutive solo shows in London this May.
The first of these, entitled ‘Flesh’, examines human activity under opposed conditions of
confined and unconfined space. In the first case - on tubes, trains and airplanes - the
constraint is imposed by the mode of travel and subjects are photographed close up,
according to their confined state. In the second, the constraint is self-imposed -
choosing to occupy the same public park at the same time each morning - and the
subjects are photographed in isolation according to the condition of their choice and the
routine they have developed. In both cases the closed circuit of activity is centred on the
body and its cycle of repetition.
Of ‘Flesh’ Broadbent says, “When human matter is crammed into a confined space, it
exudes a spiritual yearning which, when that constraint is removed, can get dissipated in
limited objectives or simple aimlessness - the physical constraint being replaced by a
mental one”. The two series featured within the exhibition correspond to these two
outcomes - the style of the first deriving from Bosch’s ‘Christ Carrying the Cross’ with
that of the second providing its counterpoint.

The second exhibition, ‘Fiction & Non-Fiction’ is comprised of three series of ten
photographs each. In the first the camera operates at the limit of its ability to retain a
stable image and the material content of the world is smeared into the vertical plane
while, in the second, objects resist this process by adhering rigorously to its lateral
surfaces – the fiction and non-fiction referred to in the title. The third mediates the two in
a journey through the functional environment of the road-scape.
Of ‘Fiction & Non-Fiction’ Broadbent says, “The beauty of photography is that it
makes imaginary objects out of the reality of real ones, in a way that painting and
sculpture can’t and so for the photographer the world is a material tide which never
ebbs.” This exhibition represents three ways in which this happens - when things are
moving, when they are still and when they are part of a single, continuous event. Each
series represents a different experience of the material nature of things and so each
ends in a different way - with the physical break-up of the image, with the physical death
of the person and with the physical end of the event.

‘Fiction & Non-Fiction’ is therefore the direct continuation of the first exhibition ‘Flesh’
in which the material in question is the human body.

FLESH runs at The Brick Lane Gallery: 11th–17th May, 1pm-6pm.
Private View: 12th May 2010, 6pm – 8pm, by invitation only.

www.thebricklanegallery.com
www.hamishbroadbent.blogspot.com
www.artshole.co.uk/whats_on/?mode=5&evt_id=4282

196 BRICK LANE, E1 6SA
+44 (0) 20 7729 9721
WWW.THEBRICKLANEGALLERY.COM

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