I'm very pleased to be taking part in this exhibition at Dimbola Museum
Julia Margaret Camerons' former home
on the Isle of Wight
Huge thanks to Maxine Watts of Reclaim Photography Festival who organised and made this exhibition possible
https://reclaimphotographyfestival.org
https://reclaimphotographyfestival.org
A Cartography of Dreams
14 October 2016 - 1 January 2017
Dimbola Museum & Galleries
“Dreams are true while they last. And do we not live in dreams?” Alfred Lord Tennyson
In this exhibition, four photographers set out to answer this question posed by Alfred Lord
Tennyson some 150 years ago. Their artistic exploration maps the contours of their
dreams and imaginations—much like cartographers outlining the shorelines and mountains
of a new continent. For what are dreams, but a map to move us forward on a quest
for understanding?
And on this journey to awareness, one artist beckons with gesture and symbol to a quiet
blue world, on a search for meaning and purpose in an unknown future. While another’s
attraction to the strange and bizarre, melded with a dose of reality, creates an incongruence
that implores us to look again and again. A third artist uses colour as an emotional
springboard, moving us through visual dreamscapes that merge magic realism with surrealism,
considering complex relationships along the way. And a fourth artist looks through a
lens of hope and possibility, longing to see the unseeable and to know the unknowable. A
quartet of dreamers and explorers they are, taking us along for the ride.
Julia Margaret Cameron, in her timeless and moving work, sought to ennoble photography
by combining the real and the Ideal. It is the hope of these four photographers to honour
her legacy by creating art that encourages viewers to embark on their own expeditions,
map their own dreams, and perhaps alter their directions as a result.
This exhibition features thirty one works by four international photographers: Fran Forman,
Jonah Calinawan, Paul Biddle and Tami Bone. The exhibition is produced and curated by
Dr Rachel Tait, Dimbola Museum and Galleries, in association with Maxine Watts, Reclaim
Photography Festival. For more information about the four artists and the exhibition,
please visit:
Dimbola Museum & Galleries
Tami Bone
Jonah Calinawan
Fran Forman
Paul Biddle
Maxine Watts