Pam Kleemann - COOKED + Hairball Café
Exhibition: 3 July to 3 August, 2002
Pam Kleemann is not interested in creating standard photographic prints on paper. Many of her works use liquid photographic emulsion to free an image from paper and allow it to appear elsewhere. In the past her images have graced handbags, pillowcases and hospital beds. Her focus is often the human body and its capacity to house pleasure, pain, contradiction and expression. In this, her latest work, she serves up a visual and visceral treat.
COOKED
This photographic installation features a long banquet table seemingly prepared for a feast with a red satin tablecloth and an arrangement of cooking implements placed upon it. But, on closer inspection these exquisite platters and pots offer a banquet with a difference. One finds a banquet of body parts laid out as rich, baroque tableaux. Kleemann offers up feet and hair and bulging bits, putting a new spin on the old adage "you are what you eat".
Hairball Café
This work features café tables covered with hairy tablecloths and laid with hair bearing plates. It was inspired by Kleemann's discovery of a barber's shop in Adelaide, a section of which had been converted into a coffee shop. She saw the promise of flyaway hairs and short blacks as both intriguing and revolting. Both works provide food for thought - about what and why we consume.