I'm currently in a group invitation show at Matchbox called Moments | Spaces | Time | Places (link) (or something like that, I think that all involved have got a little tired of typing it!). 

Primitive markings2015, digital c-type print A kind of peace2013, digital c-type print The longer the note was on the board the less sun bleached the board got2013, digital c-type print

They have hung The longer the note was on the board the less sun bleached the board got 90 degrees clockwise, but I have a feeling that it might actually be better that way, I'm not above responding openly to chance! I recently showed my sister a test print for a show in October and had it upside down for several minutes before correcting this, and she politely pointed out that it was not as good the 'right' way up. So be it.

There are some nice things in the show, including my friend Zara Pears showing some more of her boundary-pushing portraiture, do pop along and see it! The show title made me think about how I don't tend to treat bits of time or space as discrete lumps, rather I often compress them together. Even the light-painting work from a few years back was about the past and present together, and also they were long periods of time compressed into a frame. It's interesting. Still no snapshots for me!

The The Hinterland show in October is going to be great. I still have much to organise for my contribution, but it should just be manageable. It's going to be all-new work for me, and a bit of a branching off.

I accidentally called my pictures Conceptual the other day. It was a slip of the tongue, your honour, and no offence was intended. I may be ideas-driven, but I very much care about how things look, which I think disqualifies me from that particular race.

I went to a talk about Constructed photographs last year. I hated the subtitle "Artists Talk Process", process fetishism does seem to be becoming the new way to justify art photos. But as a catchall term Constructed is handy for me, as at least it stakes some ground out. The Photoforum formulation of "photography as a means of expression", seemed a little limp when I joined but now I'm seeing what language walls they were backed up against at the time.

Capitalism. Just kidding. It's not the 70's still... 

Charlotte Cotton's book is really useful to me. Otherwise I wouldn't have found out about Hannah Starkey as quickly. It also uses the Contemporary word, which is entertaining.

Chagall in Christchurch. Now, there's an idea. My childhood is certainly is as gone as his was! Found out today that my degree will not be offered from next week. Scarcity drives up value, right?

C*nt. Hah, you didn't think I would, did you? And I didn't. Where has shock value moved to? I have a package to forward on.

Tomorrow evening my friend Zara Pears and I are opening a duo show called Respite, at Matchbox Studios. 

The blurb for my bit of the show says it pretty well, I reckon. It's:

"Michael Edge-Perkins is a Christchurch-born, Wellington-based photographer of objects. He works in a by-turns warmly and cooly haunted visual space that is bounded somehow by geometry, folk music, still life painting and psychology. His contribution to Respite looks at ways of bringing the outside to bear on what physically, mentally and spiritually troubles us.

You can see more of his work at www.syncretismassociates.com, including his 2013 solo show at Matchbox, These things happen, which explored what it could mean to make folk photographs, and his contributions to the Matchbox group shows Jukebox, Metropolis, and View."

For me it's a bringing together of some older works that I've wanted to show for a while but hadn't found a meaningful way of grouping them. Zara's recent work about metaphorical escape from restrictions got me thinking about escapism, not in the usual somewhat pejorative sense of that word but in the sense of seeking relief from what's inside.

It's been a challenging year for me in terms of artistic production. I have two injured wrists, so camera handling and long writing spells have been out of the question for much of the time. This has however allowed for a fair whack of introspection and some new direction has come from this. Not too much to share as yet, sorry.

Here's the poster and my pictures from the show.

RESPITEweb_grande