My recent work House (seen on this web site) is a series of images exploring notions of absence and presence. Inherent in the title is the Utopian view of the house which defines an aura of safety and privacy. The “house” is a place in which we choose to eat, sleep, dream and determines our territory, both as individuals, and in cultural terms. This particular house was between occupancies, poised between past and future with scuffs and stains and traces of previous use . My aim was to place significant (iconic) domestic objects in various spaces. As on a film or theatre set, these objects could suggest possible narrative or scenarios. The resultant images hang between the artifice of staged still life/installation and the inherent realism of photography. The potential of human activity is inferred but not apparent. Themes of exile, displacement, imprisonment, loss and memory are suggested, though meaning is subverted and not literal. In each interior the viewer can discover peaches, sometimes obvious, sometimes less so. Without the peaches, the viewer might be lulled into imagining the work to be a realistic, documentary study of a particular house. Instead, their perverse fleshy presence (implying the present) provides a paradox, an irony, in these worn, linear spaces. The 12 /16 images in the series were produced using traditional photographic techniques then digitally worked. Print size A1/ A2. The work will be shown at the Wallner Gallery, Nottingham and The Mac, Birmingham and is available for touring. Previously, I have worked within still life, documentary and portraiture genres. I have been concerned with issues exploring myth, (Echoes, 1992, Icarus ,1995); gender, sexuality and ageing, (Myth, 1990); human vulnerability, (Father’s Son, 1994); and consumerism,(Consuming Passions, 1996 ) I have been constantly preoccupied with use of symbolism to denote meaning and of using the playful strategy of subverting the viewer’s understanding by employing paradox, whimsy and serendipity.
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Maggy Milner was born in Leicester, England in 1943. Originally trained and worked as a nurse, gaining an Orthopaedic Nursing Certificate and State Registered Nursing at Guy’s Hospital in 1961. In 1990 she gained BA (Hons) in Photostudies at Derby University. Since 1990 she has worked as an artist, lecturer, and commercial photographer (illustration, publishing and social photography). She has specialised in several genres, particularly still life, documentary and portraiture using both traditional processes and manipulation techniques (both analogue and digital). In 1991 she received the East Midlands Bursary for photography. This work, titled ECHOES was exhibited in Face of Europe at the Derby Festival in 1992. Solo shows include The Harley Gallery, Welbeck, The Special Photographer’s Gallery, and Coningsby Gallery, London. In 1996 she was sponsored by Virgin Airways for a solo exhibition at the Lan Kwai Fong Gallery in Hong Kong. She has received commissions from publishers including Chatto Windus, Heinemann, Vintage, Harper Collins, Jonathan Cape, Oxford University Press and also Decca Records. Her work was included in the Association of Illustrators IMAGES 23 Exhibition at the Royal College of Art in 1999. In 1999, she worked with the Iris Women’s Photography project, and was involved in curating SHIFTING HORIZONS exhibitions and publication. In 1999 and 2000 she worked with the local Bosnian community on an arts project and exhibition at Bonnington Gallery, Nottingham in November 2001 and Waterstones, London, 2002. She has much educational experience in higher, further and community education, lecturing regularly on BA Photography and Film and Media courses at Sheffield Hallam University and Staffordshire University. At present she is studying an MA ADAPT at Derby University. Recently she has been interviewed by Jenny Murray for Women’s Hour about the history of Wedding Photography. For further information see www.maggymilner.com
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