Art / SERCHIA Gallery
Serchia Gallery hosts exhibitions from Kristina Rozhkova and Jacob Clayton
SERCHIA Gallery is a residential, not-for-profit gallery, tucked away in the heart of Cotham.
Curator Christine Marie Serchia founded the gallery in summer 2021, with a goal of celebrating and amplifying contemporary photographic artists.
She also hosts an artist-in-residence programme from the same Victorian home, bringing in the local community to interact with artists and hear about the inspirations for their work.
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Current dual exhibitions at SERCHIA, from Kristina Rozhkova and Jacob Clayton, will be running until February 26. Bristol24/7 takes a look at the work within.
Kristina Rozhkova, from The Bliss of Girlhood at Serchia Gallery – photo: courtesy of the artis
Kristina Rozhkova: The Bliss of Girlhood
Russian-born Rozhkova became interested in photography alongside her philosophy studies at university.
“My photographic practice wouldn’t exist without my philosophical work,” she reflects. “Just like my upbringing, I will always carry it with me. And while it doesn’t influence my photography any more than my love of cinema and religious iconography, it is one of the lenses through which I look at – and see – the world.”
Kristina Rozhkova, from The Bliss of Girlhood at Serchia Gallery – photo: courtesy of the artist
This collection is her attempt to sanctify youth, through a series of images of girls that she met by happenstance, while walking in her hometown.
Walking the adolescent line between childhood and adulthood, she explores the vitality of what she calls “that transient, waifish, liminal moment” where “childhood and blissfulness” converges with “aggressive sexuality and disquiet”.
Kristina Rozhkova, from The Bliss of Girlhood at Serchia Gallery – photo: courtesy of the artist
Jacob Clayton: Spider Portfolio
A series of nine pairs of silver-geltin prints, Clayton’s images are a photographic exploration of a period of time in the Darkroom of the artist’s former home in Brighton, which was also adopted by a large number of garden spiders.
Clayton was entranced by the spiders’ body, movement and behaviour, documenting them in detail and watching their “performances of entrapment” with growing fascination.
Making documents by day, he would work in the Darkroom at night, lending the project an intensity and claustrophobia that seems to resonate through the resulting photographs.
After washing and drying out the prints, he began to pair up the images that seemed, naturally, to ‘speak’ to each other.
Kristina Rozhkova: The Bliss of Girlhood and Jacob Clayton: Spider Portfolio are running concurrently at SERCHIA Gallery until February 26, Monday-Friday 10am-5pm (free, by appointment).
For more information about the exhibitions, the gallery and the artists, visit www.serchiagallery.square.site or follow @serchiagallery, @strapon_svinopas and @j.s.clayton.
Main photo: Jacob Clayton
Read more: Sadie Catt photographic exhibition ‘Beekeeper’ to open at Serchia Gallery
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