I have worked with photography, film and installation since completing a fine art degree at Goldsmith’s college in 1995. Underpinning my work has been an understanding of looking. I experimented with a range of media in the early stages working with both the still and moving image and installation but have since concentrated on the photograph.
Summary of Previous Work
 In ‘Passage’ at the Conductor’s Hallway Gallery and then in ‘Swerve’ at the Lewisham Arthouse in 1996 a video work was presented on two monitors. In both these works a small piece of super 8 film was slowed down through optical printing. (In ‘Passage’ the camera pans flowers against a wall and in ‘Swerve’ it is the movement of a women’s head that is captured). An uneasy suspension was then created by splitting the monitors and repeating the image. In ‘Worlds Apart’ exhibited at the Downstairs Gallery in 1997 a still photograph with text was placed in the space. The photograph was trapped in a glass window below ground in a cellar. One could see out but a physical exit was barred. The interior space from which the viewer viewed the photograph was brightly lit. In ‘Objects rooms and Spaces’ exhibited at deptfordx 2000 a series of photographs and a mirror were presented in the space that both describe the space and set up a dialogue between them.
Recent work since 2000
Since 2000 I have concentrated on the photograph and my work has continued to refer in some way to the act of looking. The photographs have mostly depicted windows where the reflections are also caught on camera. .For ‘Inward Looking’ 2002 and 2003, the photograph is mounted unframed behind glass. The image, a faded flower print curtain with reflections of the street opposite, is blown up to a large scale. The scale and physical presence of the glass mounted image adds another dimension to the photograph and refers to the window pane through which the reflections were originally caught on camera. In ‘Veil’ 2004 the physical scale mounting and subject are linked in this way and again in ‘Inward Looking’2006 where reflections of a landscape onto a lace curtain blur the distinctions between inside and outside.

Running in parallel to the above works have been photographs taken within my studio. I began by documenting work in my studio. In 1994 ‘Sorting Office’ an unusual shot of an installation later became of interest to me as an image. I have continued to photograph in my studio. I focus on views that I engage with every day. In this way ‘Washed out‘1998, Melancholy’ and ‘Morning Sun’ 2002 and Melancholy 2006 reflect my state of mind as much as a description of the view. This work is ongoing.

Shelley Theodore 2007-07-29