Description

Rachael Bramham is consumed by her interest in the painted surface. She has an interest in technology and in particular screens; "I am intrigued by shiny surfaces that separate the viewer from the subject and am fascinated by the notion of another dimension behind a screen containing images stored as data."

Notions of the sublime are embodied in Bramhams practice, examining the sense of transcended perception, a romantic exploration of how she perceives the digital image. She is influenced by the ideas of Haptic Visuality, where the eye works like an organ of touch and “assumes a tactile relationship to one’s object- touching, more than looking” ( L. Marks, 2004) which leads her to explore the realms of aura and contact.

"The subject of my images often explores privacy, intimacy and the overlooked, such as stains, bruises and kisses. I am interested in placing the viewer in quite an awkward closeness to a private moment or situation."

Bramham is intrigued in the remaking of images by constant photographing, or filming them so they naturally deteriorate, in this she questions the integrity of the postmodern photograph; "My work contemplates the role of technology as mediator and uses low grade technology in the production process of the final images."

Her interest in screens and surfaces, has lead her to contemplate the sense of an image entombed by a plastic screen, as well as the way this plastic barrier mediates how we can perceive the image. The original photograph often becomes the product of multiple filters through screens and lenses.

"Because I photograph flat surfaces I start to create a dialogue of space, the depicted space between viewer, screen and image. As the work contains layers of images and surfaces there seems to be obvious aura between the original image the process, the final representation and the viewer."

Bramham's work seeks to alter the perception of the photograph by the observer and create a space between the voyeur and the original image, "I am ultimately questioning the tactile relationship of image to viewer; do I place the viewer in front of an obvious screen, or over the threshold into another dimension?"