"Edgar Martins/Mia Salvato: New Work"
2003-02-04 until 2003-03-09
artandphotographs
London, , UK United Kingdom

Beautifully executed and enigmatic, Edgar Martins' photographs explore the philosophy behind the constructed image. Using the "heteronym" Mia Salvato allows the creation of two distinct bodies of work which are at once conflicting, and complimentary.

Born in Portugal, Martins was brought up in Macau. He completed his Masters at the Royal College of Art, receiving the Thames & Hudson/RCA 2002 Book Art Prize for his photography work "Black Holes and Other Inconsistencies".

The subjects of Martins' portrait essay are two brothers, second-generation gypsies, who work as sandblasters in Bedford, England. Using a large format camera, and chiaroscuro lighting, these images contrast the grittiness of his sitters' occupations with the neat femininity of the interior of their Edwardian caravan home.

Mia Salvato, the alter ego, uses high-resolution micro-photographic equipment to create abstract images of a contrived reality, which look like cosmic phenomena. Like the portraits this sequence of photographs moves from density and darkness to sparseness and light.

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