Exhibition review: Odette England at Klompching Gallery

Two Types of Banks [repair], 2019, Hand-torn archival print on newsprint, from expired 6x7

film negative, hinged with linen archival tape, © Odette England/Courtesy of Klompching Gallery

By Sara Beck

Odette England is acutely aware of the relationship between a love note and a photograph—so much so that her current exhibition at Klompching Gallery in Dumbo, entitled Love Notes, focuses entirely on the sentimentality that images are capable of holding, all of which mimic the romance, nostalgia, and sorrow which exist within a handwritten letter. 

An important aspect of this association lies in the fact that each image was created from expired negatives of photographs captured on and around farmlands that were lost by England’s family to near-bankruptcy. Just as though each negative was a letter or a note, England folded and mailed them to her parents in Australia, waiting for them to “read” them and send them back. The entire concept rests on the idea that an image can be just as much of a note as a note itself; furthermore, England asserts that each negative’s journey to and from her parents’ home turns into a crucial element of the story behind each image. The way they are folded up by England, unfolded, and folded again are, in another sense, the writing of each note. 

Compression [repair], 2019, Hand-torn archival print on newsprint, from expired 6x7

film negative, hinged with linen archival tape, © Odette England/Courtesy of Klompching Gallery

Many of the images in this exhibition have not only been folded and creased in various places, but also torn and taped back together. The folds are reminiscent of an infringement—something is added to the image which was not there to begin with, bringing a new emotional weight with it. The rips and tears that have evidently been taped back together, however, seem to symbolize something different: the reparation of an old memory, perhaps, or the chance for an old story to come to a new ending. 

Calves and Monarchs [repair], 2019, Hand-torn archival print on newsprint, from expired 6x7

film negative, hinged with linen archival tape, © Odette England/Courtesy of Klompching Gallery

“Calves and Monarchs [repair]” depicts a sprawling landscape that seems to contain three sections: some shrubbery, a flat expanse of grass, and the sky. Tape placed just on the horizon line reads as an interruption at first, an addition to the image which is clearly unnatural or out of place. With a different perspective, it can also be viewed as the thing which holds the image’s entire narrative in one piece. It anchors the sky to the earth, as though without it one might have disappeared and been forgotten.

This is a function of writing and of photography—to keep a memory or story intact. Odette England crafted Love Notes by thoroughly exploring and reflecting on the relationship between two mediums which are more similar than initially meets the eye. 

Love Notes will be on view until December 19th, 2020. 

Klompching Gallery

89 Water St. 

Brooklyn, NY 11201