Karen Grainger describes her time studying Fine art as "a fantastic splurge of creative output": she experimented in woodwork, metal and plaster workshops. Her photographic installations are a continuation of these earlier three-dimensional experimentations. 

'Re: Series' is an investigation into visual perception. Yet despite the complex questions that linger over the surface of the images, the work feels resolutely playful and effortless. 
"Each photograph was a spontaneously made new discovery. Taking mirrors out into ‘the field’, playing around and seeing what happens through the lens, I had to abandon any preconceived ideas of what landscape photographs should look like. It was a very touch and go process, a juggling and balancing act... an antidote to thinking too conceptually for hours on end in my studio."

Yet when planning the exhibition you left the hands-on experimentation behind and carefully designed mounts and frames that would display the photographs in a meaningful way.
"I devised custom box-frames which had either mirror cladding to the outside or mirror fillets inside. These were intended to echo the photographs’ dialectics and signify the activity of looking, as well as hint at the process of making." 

There are intriguing precedents of artists using mirrors as creative tools. in ‘Music for Chameleons’, Truman Capote wrote of a “black mirror” used by Gauguin to refresh his vision after times spent under the pacific sun...
"A simple black mirror can be made by painting the reverse of an ordinary piece of glass with black paint. Its reflection will show a reduced contrast image with its highlights and colours muted. When looking into the black mirror, Gauguin’s pupils would have been able to dilate and relax. More recently Gerhard Richter has been using the black mirror for its abilities to liberate the gaze by abstracting the real."

Your play with framing options - using mirrors, but also bent aluminum and wood cut-outs- places your work at the frontier between two and three dimensions. Not unlike a film seen through 3D spectacles, the 'objectified' photographs feel a little more real and a little more awkward than conventionally framed prints.
"Awkward can mean ‘difficult’ or ‘lacking social graces’... this aspect helps to dislodge the expected, often comfortable readings associated with conventional gallery presentations of photographs. It sets up a more open, heightened condition for perceiving them as quasi-realities." 

What will keep you busy until summer?
"I have started to sandwich actual mirrors and photographs together for a series called ‘Incidents and Arguments’. These require a great degree of hands-on making – laminating to glass and one way mirror, cutting voids in the print surface...  I enjoy materially affecting the perception of the photograph as a perfect image world of infinite depth and time. The works are individual installations that interact with the site and the viewing positions of gallery visitors. 

Later in the summer if time allows, I will return to landscape as per Re: Series, but giving the rationale a new twist. I’m lucky enough to be pursuing this more or less full-time now." 

See more of Karen's work on jotta in her portfolio.

'Re: Landscape' at Viewfinder Gallery, Peyton Place, Greenwich, London SE10 8RS. Open Monday to Friday 9-5, weekends 12-4. Until the 21st of February.

Artist talk at the gallery Saturday 20th February 2.30 - 4pm. Free, booking recommended louise@viewfinder.org.uk