WINNER OF RSA MORTON AWARD FOR LENS BASED WORK 2009
Falling Shadows in Arcadia
Philip Braham is the 2009 winner of the prestigious RSA Morton Award for lens-based work. Following on from his mini-exhibition at the 184th RSA Annual Exhibition, this is a solo exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy from 6 August to 3 September 2010. With the £5000 award Philip has chosen to travel Scotland visiting sites used for illicit outdoor sexual practices, not as voyeur but rather a 'distant observer’. The exhibition is featured as part of the Edinburgh Art Festival programme.
The Morton Award is funded by the Morton Charitable Trust and administered by the RSA. It is for developing new photographic or film work, which will be showcased at the RSA Annual Exhibition the following year. Previous winners include Rory Donaldson (2008), Lenna Nammari (2007) and Alexander & Susan Maris (2006).
Philip Braham (b. Glasgow 1959) studied at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee before completing his masters at the Royal Academy of Fine Art in The Hague, Netherlands. He returned to Scotland to take a teaching post at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen and is currently part of the teaching staff at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art. He lives and works in Edinburgh.
On his work:
“The series of photographs that I have produced for the RSA Morton Award takes the theme of the brevity of our being, measured against the enduring nature of the landscape. Through exceptionally long exposures, the figures in these images are recorded as ghosts that seem absorbed in a strange and uncomfortable narrative, while the landscape is sharp and faithfully described.
The images are thus a reminder of our mortality, but the ‘falling shadows’ are also a reference to a moral decline in our less than idyllic society. The landscapes are notorious ‘dogging’ sites in Scotland, while the figures enact events that have happened there at prior times - the double murders in Templeton Woods, or a rape in Roslin Glen - these are not depicted literally and the images are given titles that refer to classical biblical themes instead. Meaning moves away from the specific towards the poetic.”
Philip Braham
March 2010
Philip will also be exhibiting the lyrically powerful series “Suicide Notes” that won him the RSA Morton Award in 2009. The artist visited sites of reported suicides that had taken place between March 2008 and June 2009, and the images stand as a private memorial to the victims who had chosen to take their lives at these places.
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PHILIP BRAHAM: RSA MORTON AWARD WINNER 2009
FALLING SHADOWS IN ARCADIA
6 August – 3 September 2010. RSA Finlay Room
The Royal Scottish Academy, The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL
Open Monday to Saturday 10am – 5pm, Sunday 12noon – 5pm.
Admission Free
PRESS VIEW + PHOTO CALL:
There will be a press view and photo call on Thursday 5th August, 11am-12pm or by arrangement.
Notes to editors
The Morton Award (£5,000) is for artists working in a lens-based media to research and develop a new body of work. The award culminates in an exhibition of the resulting works at the RSA the following year. The award is open to artists who were born in Scotland or have studied at a Scottish art school or are working / permanently based in Scotland. The award is not open to students who are currently studying at either undergraduate or postgraduate level. Established in 2006, the award is funded by The Morton Charitable Trust and administered by the Royal Scottish Academy.
For further information or images please contact:
Andrew Goring, Sales and Communications Assistant, The Royal Scottish Academy on 0131 624 6556 or press@royalscottishacademy.org
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The Royal Scottish Academy is a charity registered in Scotland (No. SC004198)
Registered address: The RSA, The Mound, Edinburgh, EH2 2EL
