Side Show Valley
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2014
Authors
Kimber, M.
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Mark Kimber never fails to intrigue and delight with his fantastical dioramas. After The Pale Mirror (Stills Gallery, 2012) he returns with Side Show Valley, another richly referential series about the haunting power of photography. We look at these images with a sense that we have seen them before yet their familiarity is slippery. Kimber is an academic when it comes to the history of photography. This is not surprising in a long- term educator. Kimber has been Head of Photography at the South Australian School of Art, Uni of SA since 1989 and has an MA Fine Art Degree (Combined Media) from Chelsea College of Art & Design, The London Institute in the UK (2000).
Kimber appeals to the photographic memory by constructing images on miniature stages using doll figurines that are then altered and overlaid with photographs and the artist’s vision. Some images are identifiable as appropriations, for example A Walk in the Park is clearly drawn from Arbus’ well-known Boy With a Toy Grenade. The twins in Forever are from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. He of course was referencing his love of Diane Arbus’ Identical Twins. Several images refer to spirit photography, and in fact all the images are ghostlike in their blurred and painterly rendition. He is drawing on the cinematic as well as photography to enliven his narratives and make them more engaging. As in many of his series Kimber is the ‘boy in a toyshop’ constructing worlds for his own amusement.
It would be difficult to identify all the references in this richly layered exhibition. It is enough to understand the mind and hand at play in the series and to recognise the amount of enjoyment Kimber is having with his own deep knowledge of the medium and his palpable belief in the importance of the imagination.
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Copyright 2012 Mark Kimber