Keran James ~ 20 july to 1 september 2003
studio 1.1 london e2		text | images | press
about  present show  past shows  press  gallery details  contact		Press TIME OUT LONDON Aug 27-Sep 3 2003 Issue Hollywood is often dismissed as being superficial or irrelevant, but Keran James produces thoughtful explorations of the way that movie make-believe bleeds into real life. In 1999, on an Oxfordshire hillside, he made a mock-up of the Hollywood sign. The first three letters cut diagonally through the gallery; the flimsy wooden shapes have unpainted backs supported by cross-beams but, squeeze through to the other side, and you are in another world - trapped by the painted facades. Projected large is 'Cast List' (sic), a credit sequence that applauds actors from Klaus Kinski to Tobey Maguire and lasts the length of a regular film. Are their transient achievements important or trivial? Playing on two monitors are reflections in TV screens; the images - a gay bar, a hotel room - are blurred, the soundtracks muffled. You can also see your own reflection - indistinctly. Does being on screen make you significant or does it blur and muffle you? A film of the back seat in a taxi parodies the use of back-projection in movies. You catch only glimpses of the passengers, though; mainly you see rain falling on a motorway. The background takes precedence - there are no glamourous movie stars - which is tragic, because we know the kind of scenes referred to and relish their distance from reality. The movie world can't simply be disregarded; it is entangled in our lives. Jen Ogilvie ©Copyright Time Out 2003