20/09/2017

When I had my exhibition in Udaipur City Palace I set all the old sepia photos of political agents up in the gallery, so they made a counterpoint to my paintings; my colourful chaos of portraits were one end, arranged in dynamic clumps with lots of negative space, while the agents were arranged set around a white cubicle in the centre of the gallery which I thought of as an a sort of inside-out. I had arranged the photos with the agents I liked the look of at the front and the men who looked like awful swine at the back.

I took photos of all the agents again, taking care to be at the same distance, in the same pose, to make myself the one constant feature of the photo. I wore my favourite shirt from Udaipur market which is black with clubs, spades, diamonds and hearts all over it. So I was monochrome, the photos were monochrome. I had insinuated myself into the past so the agents and I shared a virtual 2D space.

I had all the agent photos enlarged to A2 - the originals varied from cartes-de-visite to large etchubgs, but now they are a uniform large fornat. Each photo has me reflected in them, my shirt, my yellow bangle, and in this image of Major Nixon toyou can clearly also see the guard at the gallery door, and the reflections of my paintings in the background.

I'm so pleased with this image - I feel it has chimes like a bell, echoes of different times and dimensions.