Gallery Three

I recently had the opportunity to attend a preview show at Gallery Three, Barton Marina. The work by John Swannell was on display and he was promoting his latest book and showing and selling some of his prints. John - and I paraphrase from his website - has a reputation as one of the biggest names in British photography and his consistently inventive work and unerring professionalism has kept in him in demand for over 35 years.

The exhibition included large silver gelatin prints of some of the images contained in his book along with some of his other portrait work. I found it very interesting to see how the prints were priced. The photographs of celebrities were much more pricey than the others and I have to say I was attracted to those images that did not contain a celebrity - they were much better compositions and had more to say. And for once I found images of female nudes intriguing and inspiring.

Cover image for John Swannell Nudes Book

This is the image that really caught my eye - the negative space
leads you to only one thing

Unfortunately John was not available to sign copies of his new book 'John Swannell Nudes 1978-2006' as he had food poisoning. 

But I was very interested to see this exhibition and also the other work that Gallery Three displays including Rolf Harris, Fabian Perez, Chris and Steve Rocks. Some very interesting pieces.



Fabian Perez



Fabian Perez



Chris and Steve Rocks



Chris and Steve Rocks

Reflection:

Did wonder why this Gallery based in Staffordshire does not support local Staffordshire based artists and have exhibitions and displays of their work. My friend and I began to hatch a plan to open a gallery locally to Burton to give new and aspiring local artists the chance to show off their work and also to get local businesses involved who could have an influence on either selling or promoting their work. This could work really well but would take a lot of money to set it up and develop the networks. But it is a lovely dream to have and something to aspire to.

Made me realise - once again - how celebrity focused our society is. The images of celebrities were good images but the focus was of course on the person. Other images were much stronger but priced at a tenth of the price of the celebrity based images. Is that because we as the viewer are looking at the image differently? Are we at fault? Are we conditioned to seeing and preferring an image of someone we recognise?

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