Amanda Harman
Garden Stories, Hidden Labours
April 7—May 1, 2016
Amanda Harman first experienced the gardens of Tyntesfield, a country house and estate in Bristol that is now part of England’s National Trust, as a volunteer working in the cut flower garden. After spending a year assisting with maintaining the grounds, Harman returned with her camera to tell the story of this historic site. Although decidedly understated in tone, the artist's large color prints masterfully reveal the wondrous microcosms of the greenhouses and outbuildings, whose orderly forms would cease to exist without the many dedicated hours of toil behind-the-scenes.
“By uncovering the small signs of the day to day—the tending of plants, their protection from insects, disease and weather; the nurturing of seedlings and tender plants in the glasshouses, the harvesting, drying and storing of crops, and the gathering of flowers to be arranged and placed in the house—these observations seek to embody the gardener’s labours and to reveal the unseen stories of the gardens, and those who tend them.”
Garden Stories is the 2015 Critical Mass Solo Exhibition Award presented in collaboration with Photolucida.
Amanda Harman is a photographer based in Bristol, UK. She studied photography at West Surrey College of Art and Design and London College of Communication and has worked on a range of commissions, residencies, and projects for galleries, museums, charities, and commercial clients since 1985. Harman's work has been exhibited widely in the UK and in Europe, and is held in a number of collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the National Media Museum in Bradford. She was selected for Portrait Salon 13 and won the Professional Still Life Category of the 2014 Sony World Photography Awards, in addition to being included in the Critical Mass Top 50 in 2015. She currently is an Associate Lecturer in Photography at the University of the West of England.