"Poolside: Immersion and Emergence", 2017

Three of these photographs were exhibited at the Auckland Photography Festival 'Open Waters'  at Arthaus Gallery Orakei Auckland.
Poolside: Immersion Emergence #9 in this series is a finalist in the Walker & Hall Waiheke Art Awards 2017. Friday 20th October - Friday 12th November.

This series is an homage to David Hockney’s paintings of swimming pools and the joy he expressed through his work of plunging into water with its resulting splash and reflected graphic lines of light on the bottom of the pool. This series ‘Poolside: Immersion Emergence’, uses an aerial perspective,  in which the viewer is positioned as an ‘aerial voyeur’. This provides a contemporary, drone-like perspective also alluding to issues of privacy, a current social concern. This voyeuristic detachment offers a space to further observe our diverse relationships with water. Exploring the swimming pool as a body of water expands my exploration beyond open water like the ocean. I am interested in the swimming pool as a human recreational construct, using water to create a space of relaxation, leisure, and visual aesthetic as well as a marker of affluence, and personal privilege. It also holds ambiguous psychological associations: a space of potential danger, as well as the more experienced place of fun and playfulness.The swimming pool is an architectural space of social interaction but in these works I was more interested in the pool as a solitary place of introspection, a metaphorical, other worldly space where elements of escapism and fantasy can be explored.The shadows in some of these works takes on the form, through the distortion of the water, of mythical sea creatures, the double shadow alluding to a magical reality.

Immersion and Emergence #1, 2017
​Arthaus Gallery,
Auckland Festival of Photography 2017, Theme: Identity. 2017
(curated by Cathy Carter) June 1st - 26th June 2017

Immersion and Emergence #2, 2017
​Arthaus Gallery,
Auckland Festival of Photography 2017, Theme: Identity. 2017
(curated by Cathy Carter) June 1st - 26th June 2017

Poolside: Immersion Emergence ​# Floating above, 2017

Poolside: Immersion Emergence #9, 2017 Finalist in Walker & Hall Waiheke Art Awards 2017.  Peoples choice award.  Friday 20th October - Friday 12th November. 

Poolside: Immersion Emergence #3, 2017. 
​Selected for the H2O exhibition at Manifest Gallery in Cincinnati Ohio. Opens 9th November - 8th December 2017

Poolside: Immersion Emergence ​Liquid Kiss, 2017

Poolside: Immersion Emergence, Radiating Ripples, 2018

Poolside: Immersion Emergence ​Surfacing, 2018