Silverlake Voice

Into The Woods – Ellie Davies - 1 June 2016

NEWS, PHOTOGRAPHY JUNE 1

http://www.silverlakevoice.com/news/into-the-woods-ellie-davies/

Ellie Davies, the incredible photographer we spoke to last year, is preparing her solo exhibition in London! Opening on July 21st at Kalman Gallery, “Into The Woods” will showcase her new series Half Light.Ellie’s new work explores the dark waters of the riverbank, the work is full of symbolism and the personal relationship between the landscape and herself.

In addition to Half Light, Into The Woods will include previous bodies of work in Davies’s woodland series’ including Stars, Between The Trees, Smoke & Mirrors, Come With Me and The Gloaming.

“We have no choice but to impose our own preconceptions onto the land, each of us bringing with us the personal experiences and understanding that inform and skew the way we view the world around us”

The waters are dark and very still, bordered by riverbanks, rich traceries of ferns and vegetation, textured and colorful. They dissect the space with a false horizon, a barrier that separates us from the twilight forests beyond. From this remote viewpoint we are forced to consider the land from a distance, separate, adrift in the deep and murky waters.

This body of work explores the notion of landscape as constructed; imbued with symbolism and layers of meaning. We have no choice but to impose our own preconceptions onto the land, each of us bringing with us the personal experiences and understanding that inform and skew the way we view the world around us. Living out our lives in vast cities, we are alienated from that which is natural, unable to have a truly immersive relationship with it and at best, only able to view it remotely, seeing it as an idealization, constructed and distant

Growing up in the New Forest in the south of England, I spent my childhood exploring and playing in the woods with my twin sister. In Half Light, I consider my relationship with these places, my ongoing attempt to reconnect with the wilder landscapes of my youth and to discover if those remembered and imagined places can be found and captured again, or if, like my childhood they too are out of reach.

Ellie Davies: Into The Woods

Will run from 21st July to 20th August 2016 at the Crane Kalman Gallery, 178 Brompton Road, London SW1 1HQ.

For more information, please contact the gallery on 01273 697096 or email enquiries@cranekalmanbrighton.com or visit www.cranekalmanbrighton.com

ABOUT ELLIE DAVIES

Ellie Davies (1976) was born in London and graduated from the MA Photographic Degree Course at the London College of Communication (2008). She has been shortlisted the Aesthetica Art Prize 2016 and is the recipient of numerous awards including Kontinent Award (2014), Art Gemini (2014), the Professional Women Photographers International Juried Exhibition (2012), Lens Culture International Exposure Awards (2011) and the PX3 Paris Prix de la Photographie Paris Awards (2010). Her work has been included The Arles Photo Festival in France and is held in private collections in the UK, the US, Central and Eastern Europe, South Korea, Hong Kong, Russia and The United Arab Emirates. Her work has been published in several books including WUD: Four Fictional Walks in the in solo and group shows in The Netherlands, London, Paris, Budapest, Kiev, Moscow, St. Petersburg and at the Woods, a limited edition hardcover photobook published by Tangerine Press, and Behind the Image By Natasha Caruana and Anna Fox published in 2012.