Kevin Capon: Saint Kilda

North Taranaki based artist, Kevin Capon, presents a new photographic series to open the 2010 exhibition programme at City Art Rooms.

The exhibition, Saint Kilda, references the remotest part of the British Isles and the suburb of Dunedin where the artist experienced the bleakest time of his life. Reflecting upon past hardships and the ever present challenges, the approximately ten photographs present visual metaphors of life and death.

Although Capon’s works are psychologically charged and often autobiographical, the camera lens is usually pointed at other objects and living things that are detached from his personal life. Goldfish frozen in an aquarium where the edges of the tank are not visible, for example, speaks about the condition of isolation and vulnerability in an unsettling environment.

As the artist puts it, “there is this strange and brittle stillness that I look for in a work, that point of recognition between life and death.”

Rather than working in a narrative sequence like a film storyboard, each photograph starts out as a concept that evolves independently from the other images. The series therefore defies a cohesive style and the overall effect locates each subject’s fragility and emphasises the suspension of time and space, inviting viewers to contemplate its meaning.

Each photograph becomes an introspective icon enabling the experience of ideas and emotions through non linear thought. Images of a metal bearing, a frightening still lagoon, and a vintage supervitrified dinner set are just some of the unusual starting points to explore issues of survival and collapse.

Kevin Capon (b. 1959, Christchurch) has worked as an advertising photographer and lecturer in photography at Wellington Polytechnic before departing to concentrate on his own work. He has exhibited in public and private galleries throughout New Zealand including ARTSPACE Auckland, the Dowse Art Museum Wellington, and the Dunedin Public Art Gallery.

Capon has received several grants and awards for his work including Polaroid and AGFA Corporation, the QEII Arts Council of NZ, and he was a finalist in the Trust Waikato National Contemporary Art Awards in 2006 and 2007.

Saint Kilda opens at 5.30pm Tuesday 1 March. Exhibition runs from 1-27 March at City Art Rooms.

Event listed by Sanderson

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