Uta Barth

I discovered Uta Barth‘s work while researching another artist and it was just one of those “wow” jaw dropping moments. You know the times when something just hits you where you feel this inexplicable attraction to a work, where it holds you and becomes logged in your mind? Well this happened to me with Barth’s work. And it happened not by looking at an extensive series of work, she got me with 2 images and a quote. It being:

“We all expect photographs to be a picture of something. We assume that the photographer observed a place, a person, an event in the world, and wants to record it, point at it…The problem with my work is that these images are really not of anything in that sense, they register only that which is incidental and peripheral to the implied it.” (Taken from Michal Rovner: The Space Between – If you want to read more about Michal Rovner see my post about her exhibit at DHC Art last year)

I have since looked through her work and admired the extensive simplicity and sophisticated imagery she produces. Barth is interested in how we see. She records the light, shape, stillness and the fleeting moments only witnessed by few. Her work is remarkably simple and beautiful. There is a transparency to her work where the viewer needs to go beyond the photograph to understand the photograph.

— by Aislinn Leggett on March 24, 2010. Filed under Colour, Still Life

About Aislinn

Aislinn Leggett is a Montreal-based visual artist. You can learn more about her work on her website and on her personal blog. You can also follow her Twitter @aislinnleggett and on Facebook.

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