By Peter Maddern
Shiver is the first solo exhibition of CCP graduate, Vera Ada, at the Light Gallery.
The exhibition of about 40 works has no particular theme but the things that seem to interest Vera are fairly clearly delineated. These include an attraction towards characters, who are often not only quirky but also struggling and stressed; their captures mostly being without them being aware of the camera’s presence.
She also revels in double exposures, notably Sylphid where a woman peering down at what maybe her mobile phone in a hallway is caught up in a swirling, combusting blaze of light.
Windows, particularly bus windows, are also well handled with Vera indulging optimally in the natural presence of poles and sills to construct the framework for the images, using these strained characters mentioned above to peer out or in (as the case maybe) to contrasting worlds, perhaps the forms of the worlds that are the subject of their contemplations.
Ada also enjoys forming street and domestic scenes where nature is contrasted against the human action. While without the overwhelming drama, these images have a sense of those done by Canadian Jeff Wall with Stray, Chores and Leftover the most interesting. Catch this emerging photographer til 3rd May.
Tetratologists Inc at Ladybeads on Unley Rd is somewhat of a world away from Shiver though that sensation may draw them together. Here prolific Kat Coppock has curated more than a dozen artists who have conjured all manner of scary monsters and imagery, from photos and drawing to objects and toys.
While the two dimensional works are not the highlight, children will love many of the figures that are at the same time cuddly but scary, fearsome yet floppy and deformed yet docile. Presenting them all in darkness, other than for the spot torch provided when you enter, adds nicely to the look and feel of it all. Highlights for me were Fletch Cuts’ Zombies of War, Nickas Serpantus’s Scary Hairy Faery (above) and Tiffany Hampton’s Pride and Vanity (below).
Zombies is a hand cut stencil of a soldier staring out at us emerging from a dark and occasionally blood splattered abyss. Scary Hairy features a locust / mouse cross, in a high rage straddling a stick locked away safely (thankfully) in a dusty, grey bird cage. While Pride and Vanity is a nice combination of a similarly disposed Tasmanian Devil type creature frothing at the mouth and ever so fearsome, yet it possesses qualities of a treasure you would like to take home with you, with bright rhinestones and glitter creating that confusion about its soul that the title of this work plays to so well.
Tetratologists Inc is on until 9th May.
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