Artist - Annie Hogan

Sourced from Annie Hogan's blog http://www.anniehogan.com/artwork/diptychs/

Annie Hogan is interested in photographing domestic spaces around the world but starting from Brisbane. She states 'My art practice is typified by a consistent exploration of the enclosed Australian domestic sphere and has evolved through questioning photographically, the nature of ‘interior space’. Underlying my investigations is a concern that the domestic interior is not only a container of time, but also a receptacle of past actions and energy, which may become imprinted and may be perceived to be active on the space long after its inhabitants’ have departed. Imaging suburban spaces such as rental houses in the neighbourhoods of Brisbane, my images aim to interpret and visually articulate specific concerns of ‘duality’ that may exist within them and between them. Natural light pours in from dressed and undressed windows of these ‘in-between’ spaces, highlighting specific textures and surfaces. This can evoke an almost palpable sense of absence/presence. Large mural size prints are of unfurnished, untenanted spaces in limbo, awaiting habitation. These representations are not about emptiness, but more about memory and the vestiges of past inhabitants, mementoes of both a past and a future'.

Natural light in her early works.

She uses the lighting to create a sense of presence – interesting in terms of my own work where I m hoping to create a sense of presence of the divine.

Annie Hogan also uses a limited colour range in her photographs. Something to think about – and why –

‘Utilizing transient suburban rental spaces in Chicago, Stairs, Untitled (Martha’s room) and Ambivalence aim to interpret and visually articulate specific concerns of duality existing within and across these in-between spaces. Natural light pours in from dressed and undressed windows highlighting specific textures and surfaces. This can evoke a palpable sense of absence/presence. Mural size prints are of unfurnished, untenanted spaces in limbo, awaiting habitation; illuminated domestic spaces in which something is felt by the viewer, rather than merely seen.’

Creating a sense of something …. Using saturated colour. And a sense of the in between

‘My work has evolved out of a persistent curiosity about interior built spaces, how we inhabit them and their relationship to the body. My images are unified by the notion of the ‘house’ as a dystopia where domestic space enables control and containment of the body operating within a system of power that is reinforced through architecture. In these images, bedrooms and hallways; kitchens and living rooms function as temporary uneasy holding spaces rather than spaces of comfort, invitation and warmth. Through saturated color and skewed perspective I reveal arterial spaces of in-between-ness that momentarily enclose the body yet allows for departure through open portals of light.’

A commission for the Ipswich Art Gallery of a Victorian era Church Manse in Ipswich, Queensland, Australia. Seen and not heard plays homage to a child’s perspective. Shot from the head height of a child, the world seems oddly skewed with looming doorways, deep long passages, tall ceilings and the familiarity of close flooring. The ambiguous nature of these spaces parallels childlike states that may hover between keen anticipation to trembling fear, of whom may enter or exit these transitional in-between spaces. Re-contextualization speaks to how we may weave together memories of such places and participate in a shared experience of being. Both visually alluring and repelling, the works in the Seen and not Heard series, straddles the binaries of confidence/uncertainty and real/imagined through a palette of earthy hues that become more earthly from the ground upward.