Stina Brockman

Stina Brockman belongs to the generation of photographers that, in the early 1980s, broke with the political-documentary school that dominated photographic dialogue at that time. Technically, she tried to find a classical pattern and she preferred large format cameras rather than the usual compact format. She was inspired by Victorian portraitists and other classical photographers who were active in the late nineteenth century. Stina Brockman was also one of the photographers who came later to be termed intimists, principally because she kept very close to what she was photographing. This applied both to portraits and to objects. Another reason was that she preferred to work in her own environment, at home or in her studio. She has a profound knowledge of the technicalities of photography and a well developed feeling for materials. Technique is of very great importance to photographers like Stina Brockman since her pictorial sense demands quality both in the camera and the photographic materials – as well as a profound understanding of her own personality.

A characteristic element in her work is the confrontation between focused and unfocused in her pictorial compositions. The lack of focus is important in giving expression to movement and a tension with an underlying tone both of drama and distress. The human bodies that form her motifs are emblems of this condition. We are constantly pervaded by these metaphors, these images that mirror our own interior selves. These inner bodies want to display themselves naked. The exhibition is entitled Sexy Eyes. In our eyes there is a desire to be pervaded by the other’s images.

Stina Brockman has chosen to produce her pictures for “Sexy Eyes” using digital ink-jet prints on watercolour paper.

Curator: Leif Wigh