Alexandra Lethbridge is a British Photographer who works with imagery, sculpture and moving image, most of her work consists of conceptual meanings behind them, for example, in her first book Meteorite Hunter (2014) she combined images of rocks from gift shops with images from NASA of actual meteorites to try and confuse the audience as to which images were of what. I find this to be very interesting but also quite exciting as it allows the brain to use imagination and also realise how easy it is to be deceived in such a simplistic yet complicated manner.
For her project The Archive of Gesture she used Greek statues who would, quite commonly, have limbs missing, ‘The famous statue Venus de Milo has been long debated as to what she was doing with her arms. Speculation includes the possibility she was grazing the shoulder of a warrior, holding an apple, or gazing into a mirror.’ (Yoghurt Magazine, 2020) , the very focus of this body of work is the absence of certain pieces of information and so Alexandra Lethbridge creates pieces to almost filling these voided gaps as to what she and what others have conspired the ‘missing limbs’ would have been like, how they would have been portrayed. To do this, she uses collage and manipulations within her images to create a sense of ‘absence and presence, transparency and obstruction, truth and lies.’ (Yoghurt Magazine, 2020)
I am researching into a few different photographers who have used Greek Mythology within their artwork as I am very confused as to where I should start with this project, but by looking at other people’s work, it is helping me to gain more inspiration and to hopefully move on more with my own work.
I really enjoy this body of work, both visually and conceptually, I love the playfulness it entails, which is definitely something I want to be present in my work, however I would prefer for my project to hold more meaning in the sense of Greek Mythology, whereas this is a bit more broad. Even so, I think the use of mixed media and all else is beautiful and I am really glad that I researched into Lethbridge’s work as it is very visually and mentally pleasing.