04 Jan 2011

Marko Dutka & Sean Branagan at the James Hockey & Foyer Galleries, UCA Farnham, UK

From 15 January 2011, the James Hockey & Foyer Galleries, University for the Creative Arts, Farnham, UK, host two new exhibitions: consummate fashion photographer Marko Dutka's, 'Baroque & Roll', and moving image artist Sean Branagan's, 'Take me anywhere, I don't care – I don't care'.

Private View: Friday 21 January 2011, 6.30-8.30pm


Marko Dutka 'Baroque & Roll'
15 January – 5 March 2011, James Hockey Gallery

Marko Dutka's new work 'Baroque & Roll' takes as its inspiration the 'Baroque' or misshapen pearl. His stunning new portraits are from an ongoing project exploring, documenting and celebrating individuals in all walks of life who add colour, richness and diversity to our culture.

''Baroque' pearls don't hang well together' says Dutka, 'They can't be forced into clusters and their beauty relies upon hanging separately, claiming all their own attention.' These individuals hang separately, revelling in playing with a language that they create themselves, dancing across the boundary between the group and the individual. Dutka's work challenges the homogeneity of modern society with striking simplicity and directness.

We live in a culture of diversity that is composed of ever decreasing circles of conformity. In our most individual condition of nakedness we are at our most conformist, simply the animal. Even here there are those who, through exercise, incision or ink, are simply not satisfied.


Sean Branagan 'Take me anywhere, I don't care – I don't care'
15 January – 12 February 2011, Foyer Gallery

Sean Branagan's work has a hint of the impossible but nearly graspable about it. His moving image pieces bridge traditional artistic techniques and contemporary visual language.

With the adoption of LCD screens 'time', 'light' and 'movement' become elements that are as valid to his practice as more conventional ones of painting such as line, form and colour. Light and movement emanate from within the work. However, light is also applied externally onto the work, to be seen in the full light of the Gallery. Branagan creates works that consistently 'pop the bubble' of visual art, reaching out towards us whilst inviting us to reach inside them.

Branagan's work exists simultaneously in two and three dimensions. He doesn't describe the world we know. Instead he attempts to breach 'The Real'. His art is less about creating a navigable bridge between the tangible and intangible; more an orchestration of seeing and feeling the work homogenously: about embracing the idea that perhaps there is no difference. Perhaps there is only one thing – 'The Real'.