Artwave - Lisa Barnard

Lisa Barnard lives at 8 Paddock Road. She is, amongst other things, a photographic artist. I know this because I’ve been to her house to see her work. Lisa is taking part in Artwave’s Open House season, in which you are invited to snoop around artists’ houses and studios and check out their work. You can have a look at the books on their bookshelf, if you’re really nosey. It’s great. The first thing Lisa does was to fix me a whisky. The second is to show me some Japanesey pots, made by a friend of hers that is also exhibiting. Or they might have been sculptures. Or deluxe ashtrays. I am invited to hold one. It looks like it is going to be heavy, but it is surprisingly light. It’s a raku pot. "It’s a fast dramatic firing technique,” says Lisa.

She then shows me some large square contacts of the work she will display. She works with a plate camera. "Everything is much slower,’ she says, ‘so it is more like creating a piece of fine art than taking a photo. It’s a very quiet process." She had been to Ashdown Forest, and photographed some trees, in varying stages of blurriness. “It’s inspired by theories from psycho-aesthetics,” she adds, when pressed. “A piece of artwork is a three-way triangle, linking the viewer, the producer and the piece of work. It’s very autobiographical.” She tells me the critic Margot Wadell has written an essay about her photo technique, which she promises to send me. “I shift the plate of the camera, which has the effect of disorienting the viewer,” she says.

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