Liminal

Simon Mark’s photography exhibition, Liminal, at Toi Pōneke gallery in Te Aro, represents a new approach to his ongoing exploration through photography of the interplay between representation and abstraction.

The exhibition includes a range of photographic images — digitally edited aluminium prints overlaid with a rendering of opaque colour, and untouched digital prints. The source of the imagery is, as Simon notes,

“overlooked bits of the urban landscape that look, at first gaze, like a painting, or at least like a photo that could be mistaken for a painting. If the viewer, on first glance, asks ‘what exactly is that?’, it's a fair, and welcome, question. No rural landscapes, or people. Preferably nothing too recognisable.”

Liminal includes images taken in Pōneke, on the Interislander, in Tāmaki Makaurau and other places in Aotearoa, and overseas. But there’s no way you can tell what is from where.
The familiar tropes of Simon’s practice — strange, composed, aesthetic, photographic-based images drawn from the mundane and quotidian that seek to mix up perceptions of what is real and what is not — remain constant. This new approach offers gems of dislocation at the boundaries between the overlay and the image (liminal means ‘occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold’). The overlays help emphasise these dislocations, but also unexpectedly create a contrast between the flatness of the overlay and the depth of the remaining image. 

For Simon, digital cameras and editing software are useful tools to help modify the randomness of image-taking that seeks to convey this tricky interplay between representation and abstraction, and to experiment with image making. His photography pictures real objects in the real world, but it's never quite clear what the object is, and which world it occupies. He notes that,

“a show at Toi Pōneke, with its lovely, large, space and supportive environment allows for experimentation. Transforming the overlooked into a thing of value and beauty, celebrating the mundane, quotidian, and overlooked seems to me to be a worthwhile thing to do. Things are seldom as they seem”.     

Simon’s work will be on display at Toi Pōneke Art Centre’s gallery from 14 January 2023 – 10 February 2023. A celebration to mark the occasion will be held in the gallery on Thursday 19 January from 5:30pm.

Join Simon for an artist talk in the gallery on Saturday 28 January at 1pm.

Toi Pōneke Arts Centre is where our city’s arts communities interact, produce, innovate, teach, and exhibit. Situated at 61 Abel Smith Street, Toi Pōneke Gallery is open 10am – 8pm weekdays, 10am – 4pm weekends, closed public holidays. Free entry, www.toiponeke.nz