On a hot and sticky day I ventured forth to West London to view Richard Heep‘s ‘Present-Past’ exhibition. Uniting his Americana series of work with English pieces reflecting the sombre melancholy of the British Isles, this seemed like one not to miss.
Rathbone Gallery is a little bigger than a corner shop, but this works well with the intimate photos that hang from walls. The exhibition was meant to document the present existing as ‘an extension of the past; a past relived and re-invented, one around us as we live through the fading ripples of a previous age’.
Americana photos included the iconic American cafes in the middle of nowhere, letterboxes, crumbling remains of towns after boom years. The mood of nostalgia and transitory states in the america series that echoed the 1950s, worked well in conjunction to the other English photos. With nostalgia you often think of regret at what is past, but the warm colours, inner glow and sense of movement in many pieces imbued each with a sense of subtle optimism.
In many of the photos taken in Britain there was an inner peace, as Heaps captures moments of reflection at the past, at mundane moments like putting the washing on the line. The dancing light, the lone objects, the tired highways; all of this imparts a worn down quality.
I’m fascinated by the concept of nostalgia. Even a week after graduating uni I was looking back at ‘past days’ and recalling memories with a well known warmth. The rich colours, the lone objects, the quiet recognition in all of the images, makes the past feel familiar, isolated and sad. Like Heaps’ image of the iconic American sun dried landscape an isolated car must travel through now and again; perhaps going back to the past is a little like a journey that is inevitably familiar, isolated and ever so slightly sad.
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