Rosy Martin: 'Too close to home?'

With photographs and a video which offer glances at fragments of
working-class suburban social history as if held in aspic, Rosy Martin creates an installation which both poignantly recalls the familiar and makes it strange. By mapping the traces of 'absent presence' clinging tenderly to every worn surface of the artist's childhood home, the images isolate fragments which evoke textures of place and layers of memory. Extracted from answer machine messages, the mother's frail voice holds the weight of understated expectations, whilst potent meanings lie in the sub-text. The attempt to retain a sense of place forever focuses us upon the contradictions of our attachments.

Rosy Martin works both autobiographically, using self-portraiture, digital imaging, still life photography and video and as a phototherapist to extend the range of potential meanings that lie within domestic photography. Since 1983 she evolved and developed a new photographic practice - phototherapy based upon re-enactment. Through embodiment, she explores the psychic and social construction of identities within the drama of the everyday. Her work bridges private and public discourses. She has explored themes such as gender, sexuality, desire, family dynamics, memory, class, shame, power/powerlessness, health and disease, ageing, bereavement, grief and loss. Exhibitions of her work have been shown in a range of ways from international galleries to community spaces. She has run workshops and given lectures in universities, colleges and galleries throughout Britain, Eire, USA, Canada and Finland; also in community contexts including a women's prison, projects with survivors of sexual abuse and schools projects.

The Obsessions Group Exhibitors, Patricia Townsend, Rosy Martin, Izzy Ramsay and Gina Glover, will be conducting a seminar and discussion on Saturday 21st October