'A Dozen Eggs' Exhibition On Show In Sheffield

An OCA Photography student's work is to feature in a new exhibition that will take place in Sheffield's Bank Street Arts Gallery.

‘A Dozen Eggs’ is a series of colour photographs by Manchester-born Harry Pearce offering a critique of the life stories of the photographer, his mother and his eleven siblings. Together, the photographs provide a snapshot of family ties and tensions in parallel with a dispassionate commentary on origin, social mobility and ideas of home. His work, which gained him a first class honours degree with the Open College of the Arts in September, is about to reach a wider public with a one-man show at Bank Street Arts in Sheffield, opening on 13 November.

The work began life as a number of individual photo shoots which took place over a period of 18 months. The images were taken in 12 geographically diverse locations, usually, but not exclusively, in a domestic environment. The exhibition has been curated to provide a juxtaposition between the 'amateur-led' family snap genre of photography and the 'professional' artistic notion of the publicly-displayed gallery setting.

As both photographer and family member, Harry highlights the issue of detachment, questioning the links and potential frictions between the observed and the observer, and inviting his audience to do the same. He cites the work of three British photographers as influences on his thinking about the interaction between the image and the viewer: Richard Billingham, whose candid images of his family were published in his 1996 book Ray’s a laugh; Stephen Gill, whose work is seen as a hybrid between documentary and conceptual art; and documentary photographer KayLynn Deveney. Drawing on the ideas outlined by Professor of Cultural Geography Gillian Rose, who argues that family photography is worthy of serious critical attention, his work reveals an intimacy and intensity that replicates Tina Barney’s The Son.

‘A Dozen Eggs’ is at Bank Street Arts, 32-40 Bank Street, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, S1 2DN from 13 November to 1 December 2012, Tuesday to Saturday 10am to 5pm.