Photographer uses herself as consistent image

Press, 9 March 1988, Page 23

Photographer uses herself as consistent image

KAY FORRESTER

Margaret Dawson may be in all the photographs in her latest exhibition, but it is not herself that she is photographing. The Christchurch photographer is vehement that the works are not selfportraits. She uses herself simply as a consistent image through the series of scenes.

It is a technique Dawson has used before, dressing up for a particular situation. •»

In the present exhibition, at the Brooke Gifford Gallery, she is in costume as a variety of characters, playing different parts. Putting herself into her photographs allows her to break down the traditional artist-model relationship. She becomes a spectator of her own caricatured past. Using the same figure in different situations allows her to say something about the essence of self

and ihow it is shaped by environment. The exhibition’s title, "Marg N. L. Persona,”! pronounced marginal persona; best sums up the i character who appears in I the photograph.

The prints are all large, j some larger than life. The i third shot in a triptych is! enlarged to emphasise the! threatening nature of the! figure.

The artist is also exploring the reaj and the artificial. Some of the photographs use photo copies as part of the image, and what appears, real in the photograph ! often is not. One shows a woman looking at an old master oil painting. It is, in fact, a colour slide of the, painting. It is this layering of the! real and the illusory that Dawson finds fascinating. Her first exhibitions were documentaries of reaj scenes. The first was of people on Christchurch

Transport ■ Board buses and was displayed on the buses. I Another,.| done soon after she graduated from the Univeraity of Canterbury School of Fine Arts, while working at the Robert McDougall Art Gallery, was called “The Street.” It! depicted the police on their beat.

This show used a threedimensional cage to bring the viewer close to the image. Dawson continues with this! three-dimen-sional setting of her photographs in the present exhibition. "I think my work is sculptural | — its setting and frame! are all a part of the image,” she said. The next exhibition was called “About Women.” It had shots:[ of women in various roles.

“I did [[not feel good about it at ; all. It was not what I wanted. I realised that the images seemed to be negativq; I was criticis-

ing these people. That is one of the reasons I have used myself in the images in this series,” said Dawson.

The photographs were taken over the last four years and had a feminist message, she said., Some were taken with a tripod and cable, others by friends and helpers.

Dawson said that she chose photography because of its versatility and accessibility. The technical aspect of the prints was important, whether it was correct or bad.

“Some of the images are blurred or use light bouncing off the film to achieve the effect I wanted. If they were holiday snapshots you would throw them away,” she said.

The exhibition was first shown at the Dowse Art Museum last year. It will continue at the Brooke Gifford until March 25.