St Cirq Lapopie: A Photographic Exhibition Exhibition Review
Artist: Anna Niblic-Heggie
Anna Niblic-Heggie's exhibition of photographs derived from St Cirq Lapopie, besides being stunning images in their own right shows that she has incorporated one of the elements that am the essence of French photography from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. On the surface, there is a timeless quality that is a reflection of the subjects and the tones she has clan to render them. The inclusion of the muted colours and pencil marks gives an appearance of the gum bichromate process, favoured by one of the greatest French pictorialists, Robert Demachy. Although both artists have used layering techniques to generate parts of their images, the individual techniques are a reflection of the prevailing technologies. While Demachy used succeeding layers of dyed gum arabic, Anna Niblic-Heggie used computer generated layers.
French photographers have always had a fascination with recording their environment starting with Gustave Le Gray of the 1850s and 60s through to the most significant photographer of that genre, Atget Neither produced just documents but tried to choose the exact viewpoint that would express the element of romance they felt for their subjects. The same feeing comes across in Anna Niblic-Heggie's interpretations. There a a strong feeling of empathy with the buildings which shows a curiosity for the people dwelling in them.
The very influential French photographer who deserted photography for drawing, Cartier Bresson, believed in the decisive moment. There lies one instant in which the photograph existed. Before or after that moment, it did not. Anna Niblic-Heggie has also picked up on this idea in that the position of her shadows form the photograph. As the sun moves on, so would her forms and so what we see, and what she has selected is unique.
Perhaps the most significant aspect of Anna Niblic-Heggie's work is that it has a meditative element. They invite the viewer to return to discover more about them and more about the people who inhabit the subjects. A fascinating and stimulating body of work.
