Sarah Francis is studying her MFA in Fine Art at the University of Leeds. She uses photography to record sculptural happenings and approach elements of performance in her work:
Working within the medium of performance photography my art practice observes the idea of reality and representation; I am fascinated with the uncanny duality that photography brings as a medium and how the spectator integrates with the surface of the image. Show casing the photograph as not only an aesthetic object but also an object in itself translates a new world with the interaction of concepts, narrative and meaning.
All my work is set in a small village in North Wales where by I reinterpret the facts and fictions of my past, and explore the area around me. At first glance the images holds the sense of reality that photography demands as a medium although on closer inspection the secrets the images contain start to unfold, the reality within becomes confusing but playful. This often creates an anxious tension between the presence of representation and the absence of realism to create a clear state to envisage a new world.
Gathering and relocating particular events or reminiscence that were once lost, forgotten or left behind I rearrange and weave them together with traces of dreams, the spoken words of stories and re-evaluate to create my own landscapes for my own ideas to exist in. When people ask me why not just performance, or just sculpture I always response by saying: photography is important for my work, I like to control the gaze and capture a moment that is important to me.
