There are three distinct series from Roderick Packe, Series Nine being the most recent. Series Nine will be further developed for a major exhibtion at the gallery in 2005.

view images from series nine

Details of the other two series follow:

Series Ten (The Unknown Masterpiece), 2002

“Content is a glimpse of something, an encounter like a flash.” Willem de Kooning

Produced at Christchurch Mansion in Ipswich during August 2002, these enigmatic images explore natural shifts in the colour and intensity of available light. They capture the vivid rays and soft evanescent glows that illuminate unseen corners of rooms and penetrate the dark cabinets and displays. Animated by strangely defined details that emerge apparently magically from their granular surface, the photographs seem to record the hallucinatory presence of things as if glimpsed from the corner of an eye.

“‘You see how with three or four strokes and a little bluish glaze you can make the air circulate around the head of this poor saint who must have felt stifled and trapped in the dense atmosphere! Look how this drapery flutters, you can sense the breeze lifting it’… While he was talking, (Frenhofer) touched every part of the painting with the tip of his brush: here two strokes, here only one, yet always to such effect that it seemed a new picture, a picture bathed in light.” Balzac, The Unknown Masterpiece.

view images from series ten

Series One, 1996

“Roderick Packe is concerned with photographing light, and his intensely coloured prints are created by condensing elapsing time and movement into a single image, superimposing carefully choreographed tracking shots into a single frame to make what he has called still movies rather than film stills. The lush, polymorphous manifestations of flowing colour that result can be reminiscent of many natural phenomena of light – dawns, sunsets, the aurora borealis, luminous mists, glimpses of clarity through a hazy blur – bringing to mind the painter J.M.W. Turner's suggestion, speaking of his late landscape paintings in which gaseous colours fade into one another, that ‘vagueness is my forte’.” Derek Horton, from ‘Beyond Recognition’, Optic Nerve, 2003.

view images from series one

Biography

Born 1961 in Market Harborough, England, Roderick gained his BA (Hons) Fine Art at Brighton Polytechnic in 1984. From 1984-1986 he maintained a studio in Amsterdam, and from 1999 to the present he has held the post of Associate Senior Lecturer at Leeds Metropolitan University. He lives and works in London

Solo Exhibitions

Forth-coming: Galerie f5.6, Munich HackelBury Fine Art, London
2002-03: The Unknown Masterpiece. Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich
2001: HackelBury Fine Art, London

Selected Group Exhibitions and Audio Visual Projects

2004: Photo-London. The Royal Academy, London. Stills. CD, Plush O7, Plush Editions, Paris
2003: Explore, HackelBury, London. Lichtzeichnungen. (Antonio Azuaga, Richard Caldicott), Galerie f5.6, Munich. Optic Nerve. Abstract Colour Photography. (Richard Caldicott, Robert Davies, Garry Fabian Miller, Daro Montag, Neil Reddy), Wolsey Art Gallery, Ipswich and toured to Photofusion, London (catalogue, editor) The Photography Show. AIPAD, New York. Snap Shot. CD. (Ambitronix, Steve Arguelles, Guy Barker, Dr Bone, Corin Curschellas, Benoit Delbecq, Domenico Ferrari, Original Master, Req, Ashley Slater, Tagomago), Plush Editions, Paris
2002: 100% Photography, HackelBury Fine Art, London. The Photography Show. AIPAD, New York. Ralph Lauren Benefit Auction. Christie’s, London (catalogue)
2001; Paris Photo’01. HackelBury Fine Art. The Photography Show. AIPAD, New York
Dhafer Youssef, Electric Sufi, ambient sounds, Enja Records. Piano Book. CD, (Steve Arguelles and Benoit Delbecq), Plush 06, Plush Editions, Paris. Re-Beat. CD, (Steve Arguelles, Nem Berneau, Benoit Delbecq, Dominico Ferrari, Tsuyoshi Nakamaru, Req, Ashley Slater), Plush 05, Plush Editions, Paris
2000: Paris Photo’00. HackelBury Fine Art. Antonio Malinowski. Video Soundtrack, dir. Julian Woropay, Royal Court Theatre/ Gimpel Fils Gallery, London. Drift. CD, Soundtrack Series, London. City Lives. Soundtrack, EuroArt Media, London
1999: Paris Photo’99. HackelBury Fine Art, (catalogue). Remote 01-03. CD’s, Soundtrack Series, London. Volume Transmission. CD, Worm interface, wi.020, London
1998: Almost. Computer generated films with ambisonic sound, Aztec Studios, London
Royaume. Original Music, Sam Davis Fashion, London Fashion Week. International Klein Blue. Soundtrack Series, London
1997: Matria Europa. (Roderick Buchanan, Ivan Factor, Sluik/Kurpershoek), Kunst Ruimte, Berlin/Triple X, Amsterdam. Threnos. Video Soundtrack, dir. Julian Woropay, Arts Council of Great Britain, Tate Gallery, London. Dodecahedron. Interactive sound environment (in collaboration with Rolf Gelhlhaar), The Landing Site Dance Company, Stripe Theatre, Winchester
1996: A Glass of Water. (Richard Caldicott, Karen Caldicott, Graham Durward, Joey Kotting, Patty Martori, Elizabeth Peyton, Georgio Saddotti, Elizabeth Wright), Chelsea Arts Center, New York
1994: Improbable Space. Soundtrack Series, London
1992: How Noisy Everything Grows. (Martin Boyce, Richard Caldicott and Simon Larbalestier, Thomas Gidley, Graham Gussin, Michael McDonough), Royal college of Art, London (catalogue)
1990: Video Soundtracks. Dir. Caldicott/ Larbalestier, Royal college of Art, Canon Research Project, London
1984-6: Soundtracks, Videos, Performances. Montevideo, Amsterdam/Staalplaat, Amsterdam

Curatorial Work

Optic Nerve. Abstract Colour Photography. (Richard Caldicott, Robert Davies, Garry Fabian Miller, Daro Montag, Roderick Packe, Neil Reddy), Wolsey Art Gallery, Ipswich and toured to Photofusion, London (catalogue, editor)

Selected Articles and Reviews

Stephen Bull, Source, Issue 38, Spring 2004
Joanna Pitman, The Times, 30 December 2003
Derek Horton, Beyond Recognition, Optic Nerve, ISBN 0906688396
Derek Horton, Light’s Flight Cut Short, Next Level, Edition 01 Volume 02 ISBN 9771476436006
Richard Pinsent, The Art Newspaper, No.114, May 2001

Grants and Funding

2003: Arts Council England. Arts and Business. Leeds Metropolitan University Research Grant
2002: Leeds Metropolitan University Research Grant

Collections

Work held in public and private collections worldwide.