INTIMATE ARCHAEOLOGY — Elaine Duigenan
July 9 — August 29

OPENING RECEPTION: JULY 10, 6pm — 8pm

IN-CONVERSATION: JULY 11, 7pm — 7:45pm
Elaine Duigenan will discuss her new project with Susan Bright (freelance Writer & Curator)

Although usually viewed as something ordinary, functional and familiar, these modern-day digital photograms reveal stockings and hairnets as objects of beauty and intrigue. Duigenan fetishizes intimate female apparel in a manner which is not only scientific in its archaeological approach, but also displays a delicate, flirty sensuality.
The machine-manufactured stockings, crisply detailed in their softness and overlapping textures, contrast with the often hand-woven hairnets dating from the 1920’s to 1950’s. The fact that many of these hairnets were made from real human hair, sets up all kinds of musings. Whose hair? Who knotted and wore the net? Because it never dies, hair is a curiously emotive thing — the Victorians commonly collected it as momento mori.

In her artist’s statement, Duigenan states that the images “have a multitude of referents and manage to hover between ‘intimations of elegance’ and downright quirkiness”. In their abstractness, the images transcend the objects themselves. The stockings sometimes appear as sculptural landscapes glowing in inky black space, whilst the hairnets transform into renderings of architectural form. The subtle qualities of tonal range, crisp detail and texture make these images rich and generous in all that they have to offer.

Elaine Duigenan was awarded a Bachelor of Arts from Goldsmiths College in London. Her photographs have been widely exhibited across the United Kingdom, as well as at the Houston Fotofest in Texas, the Liangzhou International Photography Festival in China and Kalamoon University in Syria. Collections holding her work include the Victoria & Albert Museum (London) and The Museum of Fine Art (Houston).

Elaine Duigenan lives and works in London.