Georgia Clemson

Whilst making ‘Most of the time we are great together’ 2019 I was specifically interested in the notion of ‘holding’ or ‘containment’ within a therapeutic context, and how I can apply this to my photographic subjects. Image-people (people in photographs) are as influential in the world as their living counterparts, and I believe they should be afforded the same respect and care. The act of display makes an image-person vulnerable and being captured in a frame holds them up to scrutiny and even exploitation. I identified the pre-described square or rectangular frame as a convention that could be improved to create a vessel that holds and nurtures the image. 

My 2019 installation ‘Most of the time we are great together’ comprised eight works I created during this endeavour to reinvent the frame as a supportive structure. While some of them reference my body directly, taking their shape from my arms, hands and fingers, others are more abstract and symbolic. These works are made primarily from wood, and the images are printed on fabric and stretched over them. In this way the work becomes complex with contradiction as the tension and manipulation in the fabric image mixes with my desire to nurture.