Photography / “I am that I am – a deconstruction” by Prue Hazelgrove, “Aftercare” by Emily Portmann, and “Transcending Bodies” featuring Xi Li, Meng-Yu Yan and Joseph Blair.  Huw Davies Gallery until September 10. Reviewed by CON BOEKEL.

“IDENTITY” connects the works of the five artists.

Hazelgrove focuses on queer identity by juxtaposing “traditional” and contemporary texts and images. At first glance the texts seem dated. They talk down lesbians, queers and women who do not conform to absolutist religious values or to conservative social norms. The imagery that goes with the texts also has a dated feel. It is almost as if we are looking at historical artefacts: stained glass windows, holy picture saints, lilies, male elders and so on. Similarly, the colours and textures in the collages have a ’50s feel about them. Hazelgrove’s collages are layered so that they stand out from the backing by around five centimetres. They also break the borders and spill over on to the matt – perhaps a physical manifestation of a desire to deconstruct suppression.

The collages are interspersed with tintype portraits. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, tintype was the dominant photographic technique. The photographs are black and white and can look deep. They are one-off – so each work is unique. They are processed within minutes of capture so they are immediate. They therefore suit admirably the artist’s aim of generating honesty in queer portraiture – in contrast to the suppressive messaging exhibited in the collages. Hazelgrove’s portraits are excellent.

Portmann tackles the psychology and the ideology of the “Me” generations in a series of prints and a video. Portmann does this by wrapping herself in swathes of pink bubblewrap. The images drew from me a wry and most appreciative grin. What is the personal and social price of the wellness industries? Portmann’s answer seem to be rather brutal. At face value, there is no face value. The bubblewrap visually eliminates the persona as well as most social connections. Commodified wellness consumption does not necessarily put us in the pink.

The third room contains the works of Xi Li, Meng-Yu Yan and Joseph Blair. Yan and Blair exhibit prints which explore identity of person and of place. Yan does so by virtually altering landscapes. These look both real and unreal.

Blair uses AI to create images of “people” which depend on descriptive inputs by “real” people. At least I think they were real. The worry here? Technology enables us to make the identities we want to see without necessarily having some of the much-needed insights into what we see, what we want or what we will get.

Li’s work is an AI generated video. The imagery moves from real to imagined identities. It is difficult to detect the boundaries. Inter alia, “Utopia” and “Dystopia” are created and then brought together. My initial reading is that Dystopia seems to be able to disrupt Utopia, creating chaos.

The technologies explored in the works of Li, Yan and Blair will most likely have the same sorts of massive global implications as the then-new technologies that enabled Henry the Navigator to send forth his ships of exploration. We are in uncharted virtual waters.

Whither identity? Whither society?

Full credit to Gabrielle Hall-Lomax for curating “Transcending Bodies”. And full credit to PhotoAccess. It seems to have an unlimited capacity to pose, and to explore, important personal and social issues by way of high quality photography exhibitions.