Holiday
Exhibition dates: Wed 1 to Tues 18 August, 2007
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Print CV
Elaine Campaner creates digital photographs from assemblages and dioramas self made from found objects.
“The simplicity and improbability of sunlight on a curtain for an Antarctic coast, a spoon for a view, a capsule bubble for an aeroplane window, crinkled cloth for the sea, a CD spindle for a baggage conveyer...”
Campaner sees the potential of disposable objects, applying a painterly ‘eye’ that elevates them from household ‘stuff’ to art.
The play of free association between objects she creates is simultaneously comforting in their simplicity and unnerving in their verisimilitude. Her work is a unique contemporary spin on the genres of landscape, history painting and portraiture, encouraging communication and juxtaposition where there was formerly adjacency.
Campaner’s work is informed by our culture of censorship and artificiality. The constructed nature of her photographs alludes to the doctored images and manipulated information fed to the general public. Via her work, however, Campaner reopens pathways of recognition, shining light on what was previously obscure or obscured.
Over a period of less than twelve months Campaner’s work has been acquired by the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; AGNSW; Art bank; Macquarie Bank and Deutsche Bank collections.
In 2005 she was shown in a seminal group exhibition called Lapped at Campbelltown Arts Centre curated by Peter Fay. Her work was hung alongside artists such as Ricky Swallow, Saskia Leek and Fiona Hall.
This year, 2007, Campaner was a finalist in the National Photography Prize, Albury Regional Gallery.
