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By: Amelia Groom
Date: 18th Jun 08
Medium: Photography
Drink: Bottle of red
WHAT
PETRINA HICKS - THE DESCENDANTS
WHERE
STILLS GALLERY
36 GOSBELL ST, PADDINGTON
WHEN
18 JUN-19 JUL TUES-SAT, 11AM-6PM. OPENING SAT 21 JUN, 3PM-5PM. ARTIST TALK SAT 5 JUL, 2PM
CONTACT
9331 7775 OR WWW.STILLSGALLERY.COM.AU
W.C. Fields once said, "never work with children or animals," but he was a strange man. Petrina Hicks works with both, and she does it well. She's a master of ambiguity - traversing lines between truth and falseness, perfection and imperfection, innocence and cynicism.
With starkly simple compositions, flat antiseptic lighting and extensive digital manipulations, her subjects are impossibly neat, excessively flawless, and somehow dehumanised. Situated somewhere between human and computer creation, they appear distanced and isolated.
Reminiscent of the uncomfortable formality of studio portraiture, she creates worlds that are choreographed and self-contained, with very little left to chance. The sterile artificiality, glossy depthlessness and controlled surface of her images give them an unsettling eeriness...
Opening this week, her solo show THE DESCENDANTS will also include a recent series of video portraits, giving rotating 360 degree views of static subjects.