Chris Rhodes | Still

6 October – 3 November 2022

Throughout photographic history, practitioners have sought to study the simplicity and beauty found in our daily interactions with immediate objects – the modernist depictions of vegetables and flora by the 19th Century gardener Charles Jones or the obsessive studies and abstractions cast by Edward Weston – observe with patience and technical precision. Rhodes uses a 5x4 camera for this ongoing body of work, opting for longer exposures (some of which run up to 24 hours), encapsulating the being of the objects on the direct contact photographic paper and imbuing the sense of stillness which echoed through the years of 2020/2021.

Similar to the artists series Hotel Mermaid Club, we find a sense of humanity in the images – these are known household objects, with their function often eclipsing the simplicity and potential beauty of form. In these small, but poignant depictions the viewer is allowed to reconnect with the joy of our everyday possessions and objects that often pass through our hands with fleeting notice.