Approved: 06.07.2007

Leanne Bell Gonczarow

Artist, Researcher

Approved: 06.07.2007

Post digital revolution, the photograph is ubiquitous. The old adage 'a picture is worth a thousand words' has been adopted en-masse; the throwaway digital image is used as a tool to describe and perform everyday experience, emotion and sense of place. We are a culture of illustrated storytellers.

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Artist Statement

Post digital revolution, the photograph is ubiquitous. The old adage 'a picture is worth a thousand words' has been adopted en-masse; the throwaway digital image is used as a tool to describe and perform everyday experience, emotion and sense of place. We are a culture of illustrated storytellers.

A few choice words – or emoticons – may accompany the presentation of our images online, attempting consciously, or subconsciously, to reinforce or disrupt the reading of our chosen time-clip. We have created an arena in which we are engaged in a semiotic game of sending and receiving, encoding and decoding on a daily basis. Judgement on the aesthetic, social or entertainment value of our images is instantaneous. 

The screen is generally accepted as a transmitter of information; a conduit – and beyond issues with quality/brightness/resolution – it's material properties play little role in our interpretation of the latest sunset, first snow or first child it presents us with. The electric light that forms images on our phone or computer monitor is only nanoseconds old. In contemplation of this transient configuration, how to we begin to consider that the sunlight that formed the image we see on screen has travelled approximately 8 minutes from the surface of the sun to illuminate the objects depicted? And that the photons that made up that light were formed inside the sun's core tens of thousands of years ago? Or that the lens that took the photograph only managed to pick up a fraction of the photons that were there to be captured due to the size of it's sensor, it's limited aperture range and shutter speed? That the author decided the photons weren't performing as well as they should have been so digitally manipulated them to make them appear more warm or cold,  romantic or austere? There is an incomprehensible amount of history embedded in the material manifestation of every digital photograph the retina fleetingly receives. 

Leanne Bell Gonczarow highlights this process of material manifestation through the production of installations, books and video animations. The fundamental stuff of photography - light - is subject and material in works that aim to provoke a prolonged contemplation of their origin and presentation. Narratives both personal and universal are suggested by the context in which the light is captured and re-presented.

CV & Education

Exhibitions/Fairs/Screenings

PHD Showcase Engine Room, Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh March 2023
Photography on Ice - Performance Lecture For Free Association at CCA, Glasgow Dec 2019
Satellite exhibition - Astronomy Victorious, University of Edinburgh, UK. 2018
Lumen, Bankley Gallery, Manchester UK. 2017- 2018
School of Light, Lumen at Ugly Duck, London UK. 2017
Hard Focus, Artwork Atelier, Manchester UK. 2016
Art Moment, Moscow Russia. 2014
Elements, QUAD, Derby, UK. 2012/13
Third Stone, Occupy My Time Gallery, Enclave, Deptford, London. 2012
Past and Present, Occupy My Time Gallery, Enclave, Deptford, London. 2012
Translate/Transcribe, Central House of Artists, Moscow, Russia 2011
Attract/Repel, Central Booking, New York USA. 2010
The Reading Room at Broadway, The Reading Room (Hinterland Projects), Broadway Cinema and Media Centre, Nottingham UK. 2009
Transitions, Flacon, Moscow, Russia. 2009
It's your Round, Camberwell Arts Festival, The Bear, Camberwell, London. 2008
It was an August afternoon..., Deptford X, London. 2007
10th International Contemporary Artists' Book Fair, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK. 2007
Future Map 07, Arts Gallery, University of the Arts, Davies Street, London. 2007
LAB 07 & LAB 06 (London Artists Book Fair), Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London 2007/6
Picasso's Laboratory, St. James Cavalier, Valletta, Malta 2007
Urbanbodies 2, Greenwich Picturehouse, London. 2007
The Space between the Sole and the Heel, Collective Gallery, Edinburgh, UK 2005 & Globe Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK 2004
We Are Transparent, Waygood Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK 2004
The Dossier, Waygood Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK Intervention 2003

Residencies

Participating Artist, Planetary Processing, The Photographers’ Gallery, London 2018-2019
Moscow there and back, Occupy My Time Gallery, Enclave, Deptford, London 2012

Competitions, prizes and awards

Arts and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Training Studentship, 2019-to date
Creative Scotland Artist Development Grant,2018
The Murton / Crawford Award for Book Art (Purchase Prize), 2007
Nominated for the Deptford X MacDonald Egan Award, 2007