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Between A Rock and a Hard Place

  
Digital Print, Acrylic, Frame, Spray Painted Arrow, Each 40 x 50 cm, Unique (2023)


An arrow disrupts, moves, pierces, takes and changes. Here, arrows pierce framed photographs of rocks. Both the paper and the photographic representation of the rock are permanently changed through this action. By disrupting its stillness, the arrow transforms the image from being static to something which exists within a three-dimensional realm.

Photography is a game played by opposing forces - a constant push and pull between the present and what might be eternalised within the edges of a print. Here, the tranquility and permanence associated with rocks, juxtaposed with the movement and change embodied by the arrow creates a similar dynamic tension that is found within the medium of photography. It is a delicate interplay of contrasts that creates a coexistence of opposing forces, underscoring the notion that all photographs, despite their perceived stillness, capture transient moments.

The act of piercing is inherently one of violence. Piercing a photograph reaffirms the fragility and vulnerability of the photographic medium. It is a reminder that photographs are malleable and that they can be altered, manipulated, and physically affected. A rock cannot be pierced by an arrow, but a photograph of a rock can. ‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place’ is a visual paradox - a representation of change impacting the unchangeable. The work is a consideration of the relationship between stillness and motion, permanence and alteration, and the interplay between different states of existence. It puts into question the stillness of the photograph by exploring its constant state of tension.