The title of contemporary art photographer Blincoe’s exhibition – Wander and Wonder – inspires curiosity as to whom these words apply. Are the people in his photographs aimlessly inhabiting these landscapes, or are they wondering where and when they will fit into the world, or even make sense of it. Do they invite questions about their meaning as the viewer wanders through the exhibition?
Highly staged and orchestrated, Wander and Wonder captures a friction between innocence and ominousness, childlike wonderment and something stranger. Blincoe’s photographs use a combination of studio and natural lighting to give the works an augmented, hyperreal quality. Objects glow dramatically; shadows are cast in various directions. It’s spooky, beautiful and fantastical. But despite the exaggerated atmosphere and vastness of the environs, the protagonists seem connected and strangely comfortable.
