calendario eventi  :: 

X

7/9/2011

Leonie Hampton - Purchas

Kahmann Gallery, Amsterdam

Kahmann Gallery proudly presents the work of our new photographer Leonie Hampton - Purchas (1978).

Leonie Hampton - Purchas is fascinated by the different ways people relate to each other within the formal structure of the family. She has photographed numerous idiosyncratic families in different parts of the world. Hampton’s photography celebrates the intimate moments of tenderness and private scenes of confrontation that take place constantly behind closed doors. ‘By immersing herself in families in Rome, London, Cuba, Los Angeles and France, she has already confronted the needs to make herself forgotten as the photographer in order to disturb the course of everyday life as little as possible and therefore successfully captures those ‘little nothings’, which take us back into the depth of actual life.

Hampton’s first book, “In the Shadow of things”, was launched last May. In this book she follows her own family in their daily lives as she visits them, but reveals in an extraordinary freshness of approach, working in a flexible and natural way, using colour and ambient light, and no artificial effects. This lets her garner moments of tenderness, children’s games, instants of anguish and pain. This is not a narrative or a story, strictly speaking. Rather, it follows life and its threads as they weave together; taking us far beyond mere demonstration and making us each look into the real world...’ - Christian Cajoulle.

In 2009 Leonie Hampton - Purchas had a solo show at Foam Amsterdam after wining the KLM/Paul Huf award. She also won numerous other prizes including the ‘F’ Award (2008), Jerwood Photography Prize (2004) and an Ian Parry grant (2003). Hampton participated at the Joop Swart masterclass in 2006 and had exhibitions at FORMA Milan and Rome Photography Festival.

More about the photographer:
In the series “In the Shadow of things” Hampton photographs her own family. Even though she portrays all the family members, she focuses on her mother Bron. Bron found it impossible to unpack the boxes form the house of her first marriage, or to reveal the problem to anyone outside the family. Leonie offered to help clear the house with the tacit understanding that she would photograph the process. ‘So then I didn’t want to move the boxes because then you’re disturbing the dust, and then you certainly don’t want to open the box because the nice things inside that are all clean and packed and tidy. So you don’t touch the box. You leave the boxes where they are. I just shut the door and left it. And we lived in less than half the house.’ - Bron

We will also show work from two other series: “Autonomy, the Cariou Family – France” and “Divided Lives, the Villamil Family - Cuba/ LA”. The Cariou family live an autonomous life in the Provence. Their goal is to move as far as possible from the use of non-renewable fuel. They get enough electricity from a 140-watt solar panel to provide them with light and music throughout the year. A pump draws water from the river to a tank. In winter they use solar energy to heat the water, as the river is too cold and the current too strong for bathing. “The state puts everything into ones hands but one must always work to sustain that materialistic way of life. Money serves to make the system function and people become slaves to it.” They want to have as little to do with this system as possible. Yanick sustains the family with his earnings from olive, apricot and lavender farming. They do not have neighbours. “It is our choice to live unseen. It is not easy to live in a different way with others watching. No neighbours, no worries. Maybe one day we will have problems but we will find ways. To take the decision to live in this way is a form of combat against modern materialistic life. And we will fight for that decision.”

In “ Divided Lives, the Villamil Family - Cuba/ LA” we follow Felipe Villamil who was the head of his family and a respected Santeria priest for the Afro-Cuban community in his home town of Matanzas, Cuba. In January 1980, he was thrown into jail for an unproven offence. After nine months in prison he was given the choice to leave for the US along with 125,000 of Castro’s ‘undesirables’ or languish in jail for the rest of his adult life. He opted for freedom despite having to leave behind his wife and family. He settled in Los Angeles where he has built a new life, earning a living as a Santeria priest. Meanwhile the family he left struggled on in Castro’s dilapidated Cuba.

Image: Leonie Hampton, Courtesy Kahmann Gallery

Opening: September 8th 2011

Kahmann Gallery
Lindengracht 35, Amsterdam
Opening hours: Tues-Sat 1-5pm

stampa

permanent link