Photofusion is delighted to present an exhibition
of new photographs by
Edgar Martins. The Diminishing Present explores uncertainty, flux and
transition within the urban landscape. In the absence of human presence
and going beyond a pure formal investigation, Martins' photographs question
and challenge our relationship to, and perception of, the city.
Martins’ work constitutes a field of illusionary and
fictional games, implying passages from the dimensions of
art history, psychoanalysis and philosophy.
In maintaining a link with modernist drama, the artist reflects upon
the tentacular modern city in continual development, and the spectacular
changes in human perception and representational practices that it induces.
In a study that goes beyond pure formal investigation, disparate elements
catalyse and reunite new experiences of the contemporary city. In conceiving
a mode of thought capable of producing an interruption of contemporary
photographic praxis, Martins is able to question the involvement of various
historical and contemporary studies in the field of urban representation.
These are photographs positioned in the grey area of fact and fiction,
reality and allegory.
"The process of mutual input and feedback between our
perceptual organs
and unconscious mind based on our grasp of the nuances of language
is a very personal one and goes a long way to explain why our own particular
view and interpretation of an artwork is so unique and singular. Martins,
with his photographs of empty, banal scenes, provides the bare bones
of these artworks and we flesh them out through our own unique syntheses
of experience, memory and imagination."
Roy Exley, 'Suspicion: Edgar Martins' Forensic Landscapes'
(text commissioned for The Diminishing Present, The Moth
House, 2005)
Edgar Martins is Portuguese by birth and grew up in Macau,
China. He completed an MA in Photography & Fine Art at
the Royal College of Art following a BA (Hons) in Photography & Social
Sciences at the University
of Arts London (formerly London College of Printing). He has won numerous
awards including a Jerwood Photography Award in 2003 for his series 'Black
Holes & Other Inconsistencies' which has toured internationally. His
work
is held in collections including the Victoria & Albert Museum, London;
the Museum of Modern Art and the Orient Foundation, Macau, China;
The Photographers' Gallery, London. |
