Suzanne Williams
Suzanne Williams has the next New Talent spot at the NGCA, which runs from next Thursday 20th May 2010.
‘One minute nine Seconds’ DVD, 2010
see
‘From Durham’ DVD, 2010
see
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPnBDAMU2dI
‘New Talent’ reveals recent work created by students at Sunderland University’s Fine Art and Photography, Video and Digital Imaging courses. Suzanne William’s short videos ask us to look again at what might seem to be familiar sights.
‘One minute nine seconds’ is the journey time by train from Tyneside to Wearside, albeit accelerated by Williams from the usual fifteen minutes. Williams’s work rests on blurring the boundaries between still and moving pictures. Video footage seems to become a series of still photographs: the landscapes almost seem like ‘blipverts’ – images that flash past so quickly they are only ever grasped by our unconscious, and never fully register with us.
‘From Durham’ consists of apparently simple landscape photographs, all taken at the same time of day over a month-long period. One of the most traditional roles that Western artists have undertaken is finding beauty in unexpected subject matter. More recently, many artists have reversed this, attempting to find beauty in subjects that are over-familiar. David Hockney recently began painting sunsets, saying: “A sunset might be a cliché in art – but it isn’t in nature.” If every subject has already been used, Williams asks, how can art continue to ‘make the familiar unfamiliar’, and find new forms of beauty?
