Urban Chiaroscuro 2007, recreates Piranesi?s celebrated etchings Carceri d?Invenzione (Imaginary Prisons) c.1745-61, using my digital collage technique to explore ideas of social restriction experienced today in the European city?s of London, Paris and Rome.
Emily Allchurch, born 1974, is a UK artist, living and working in London. She completed an MA at the Royal College of Art in 1999 and has since established an international reputation with her unique photographic reconstructions of old master paintings restaged in a contemporary idiom. Presented as back lit transparencies her final images are composed from many hundreds of photographs seamlessly collaged together using digital software to create convincing, yet fabricated new spaces.
Allchurch was commissioned by the BBC for A Digital Picture of Britain (2005) and Britain in Pictures (2007). In both series, she was one of three photographers profiled for South East England. The resulting images explore the landscape and architecture of the region and were exhibited at the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television in Bradford, as well as the television broadcast. In 2006 she was visiting artist in the Drawing Department at Alberta College of Art & Design, Canada and was one of 15 European artists invited to participate in Storie Urbane, a photographic festival in Reggio Emilia, Italy.
Her latest series Urban Chiaroscuro unveiled at Frost and Reed Contemporary, St. James?s, London (October 2007), takes inspiration from Giovanni Battista Piranesi?s celebrated series of etchings Carceri d?Invenzione (Imaginary Prisons) c.1745-61. Allchurch uses her unique digital collage technique to explore ideas of social restriction experienced today in the European city?s of London, Rome and Paris - specifically a suggestion of the claustrophobic climate of fear and the prevalence of the technology of surveillance. At the same time, sunlit spiralling staircases in the distance offer a note of optimism with their possibility of choice and escape. A catalogue with an essay by Nigel Warburton accompanies the series.
Her works are in international public and private collections including Nouveau Musee National de Monaco, Financial Services Authority, Aspen Re Insurance, Galleria Parmeggiani and Charing Cross Hospital. Art fairs include Photo-London, The London Art Fair, Bologna Art Fair, ARTissima, MiArt and Toronto Art Fair. Contributions to recent publications include Digital Photography Masterclass by Tom Ang (Dorling Kindersley January 2008), and Paper City Commission, Blueprint (January 2008). She has representation in London and Milan.
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