TJ Boulting presents “Under The Influence”, the first solo show by visual artist Dominic Hawgood, winner of the British Journal of Photography’s International series award.
“Under The Influence” is a reflexion about the real and the fake, transforming or subverting what we understand through images and iconography, questioning what we see at face value.
Here, the activities of rituals performed in evangelical churches are explored in Hawgood’s photographs that blur the line between fact and fiction.
His images are hyper-stylised still life, almost sterile in their depiction of these objects and actions and the peculiar use of advertising in one specific church.
Anointing water in a spray bottle, a microphone held by a preacher, ice cubes and a wrist support, are set against backdrops of saccharine colours of the ad-man’s world of consumer culture, designed to lure us in on the sell. But what are we being sold? Advertising sells us the dream and lies to us through a simulated reality, is it at all disturbing or surprising that religion should harness these tactics too?
Hawgood presents the images combined with light sources as 3D physical objects, like some alternative Apple advert on a bus shelter. There is a sense of controlled precision, and the straight forward documentary image gives way to something altogether more sophisticated and surreal. The work is carefully composed, with its design and bright lighting referring to a constructed set where nothing has been left to chance, and feels far removed from an actual church backdrop.
Where: Tj Boulting – 59 Riding House Street – London W1W 7EG
When: 19 February – 21 March
