Cathy's Art Diary

Eclectic exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery for this year’s Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize for work published or exhibited in the previous 12 months. I always try to get to this show and it can be a bit of a mixed bag. As ever there were four photographers highlighted. I think my favourite was Anastasia Samoylova whose work looked at the environmental crisis in American coastal cities. I loved the abstract shapes created by the damage as in the attached picture. Her work was shown as big bold works against a striking green and purple background. Jo Ratcliffe’s work recorded conflict and dispossession in South Africa and Angola shown in a white room to contrast with the previous works. I would have liked to have been able to read more of the stories that went with this harrowing works. Denna Lawson, who won this year’s prize, showed work which challenged the conventional representation of Black Lives through encounters with strangers and planned scenes. The p...