The aesthetic value prescribed to the body in movement and how we make meaning through movement are investigated in Clare Rae’s works. Clare’s series Interact (on show as part of Sydney Contemporary), incite a contemplative look into the ways we utilise space in terms of our own physicality. Her photographs particularly deal with modes of human movement that are indicative to what can be classified as dance. This subtle suggestion is what brings the viewer to thinking about how we engage with our capacity for movement, and how environment plays a role.
Caught in mid-motion, the figures in Clare’s photographs
take on unconventional forms, but this sense only comes across in relation to
environment. The figures digress from movements commonly associated with the
environment in Clare’s photographs, and although there is an ambiguity, the
space in Clare’s series is recognised most strikingly as not a stage or any other obvious site for performance. This
distinguishes an intimate look at our relationship with the environment;
ourselves meeting the external, and how we make meaning of space via modes of
movement.
Clare’s photographs communicate a melodic or rhythmic
sensitivity, absent in the literal but which assists in understanding these
works as performance. The figures transcend from regular, prescribed
functioning of the body to a state of performance. It’s slight how this occurs in Clare’s
photographs, and this might be in part due to the nature of photography. These
works show the beauty of working within a restricted colour palate and offer an
inquisitive look at how we categorise and organise ourselves through particular
modes of movement.
Clare’s series slides into the realm of performance and this process of organising movement
allows for an intriguing look at the constructed meanings we place on how we
use our body.
Clare Rae
Interact, 2013
Archival pigment prints on Ilford Gold Fibre Silk
50 x 60 cm approx. Edition of 5
(Exhibited at Sydney Contemporary, Carriageworks, 19-22 September 2013)
