The ‘no ego’ exhibition opened today at the Bollington Arts Centre, and we had a brilliant crowd heaving in and out of the place! I enjoyed meeting and chatting with people (though I hid behind the bar for much of it, just watching!). One comment in particular sums up the afternoon: “All exhibitions should be like this.” By posting their own ideas about the curated groupings, viewers engage with each photograph in a deeper way than just walking around a gallery in silence ‘observing’ the work. Even those who aren’t the sort couldn’t resist pitching their own idea. The opening was lively, as people connected their own stories and memories to the groups.

Some comments on twitter so far:

Really enjoyed the ‘no ego’ exhibition. Thanks Ladies!

The No Ego Exhibition is special. An interesting concept, well executed. Oh, and the food was smashing.

The walls are already covered with post-it notes of ideas and questions. I took photographs and will share more once my feet have had a rest!

Still doing work on the website — testing blogging functionality from Flickr! The answer is: it doesn’t work perfectly with my new layout. =) I’m sorry I’ve not had much focus on posting or uploading new photographs, other than these few fun manipulations for the Pop Art White Nancy contest over on www.bollingtonphotos.com, but I’m very busy preparing for the ‘no ego’ photography exhibition with Kate McLean and Ewa James that is opening next weekend on top of all the overtime to prepare for some big events for the job that pays my dinner. Catch me later in March, when I’m catching my breath.

Don’t forget to post your own entries for the Pop Art White Nancy competition before March 1st!!

I’m pleased how well my first run of Bollington photographs have done – a testimony to how dear our home is to everyone that lives here. Just in time for the Festival, my second run of Bollington photographs have been printed and mounted. You can find a selection of them at the White Gallery now. With the aim to improve the affordability of local art, I’ve mounted the photographs myself, bringing the cost of a 5×7 down to £20.

Both runs can be seen through the following slideshow, as I still have three or four hand-mounted photographs left from the Autumn/Winter run. To see the full collection of photographs in person, you will need to visit the Bollington Festival Photography exhibition at the Methodist Church in May, as a good portion of my work will be on sale, alongside other fantastic local work by Bollington photographers! More information to follow.

I am working with two other photographers on a joint exhibition of our work, which has proven an interesting experiment in self-review. Becoming acquainted with each other (and each other’s works) is just one part of the complex process of creating a joint exhibition. Although we have been working hard to consolidate our ideas and choices, it hasn’t been an immediate success. We have three very different photography styles and subjects.

Despite this, I’ve found it easy to ‘curate’ a collection of our photographs that I find both interesting and aesthetically appealing, without a need to explain ‘why’. In fact, I gently propose that the curating choice is its own ‘why’ and no further definition is needed. This is akin to the difference between a novice chess player and a world-class one. With an advanced, highly refined intuition and perspective, the world-class chess player acts seemingly without thinking. But you can probably guess that one act is worth loads more than even an hour of deliberate consideration from the novice.

When it comes to viewing art, are we all novices or geniuses? Granted, it’s a bit harder to articulate the emotional and physical reactions to a collection of art, but ultimately it comes down to the same judgement and intuition at work. And I prefer to leave those processes untitled and unsaid.

This is a personal quirk, for I am actually well-qualified to critique. The combination of my studies in art, human behavior, and biology have given me a unique multi-disciplinary perspective on aesthetics. When I look at a photograph, I have the technical skills to identify the methods used to create the work, the scientific skills to know how the eye and brain are processing the information, and the emotional intelligence to sense and break down the complex associations I am making as a result of viewing it. But it really does beg the question: do I need to?

Communicating all of that is a further step, a different part of the brain and body, and surely some of it is completely untranslatable. No words will (should?) help trigger that aesthetic experience more than the art itself could. We all will have different tastes, therefore, with different consequences.

And I quite like it that way.