Selected Works (2011-2013)

In my work I stage dramas. Animals are illuminated in the darkness by unnatural light – dramatised – the animal becomes a performer on the stage of nature. Animals are captured in quiet or silent moments, scenes that are seemingly transcendental; the animal becomes mystical.

The scenes are uncanny, otherworldly, but also very real. The animals or landscapes before us are not uncommon; it is the context or light that unsettles us.

A reoccurring motif is the suspended animal; the animal held in mid-air, reminding us of the particular quality of the photograph to suspend time. This may be achieved simply through the act of photographing a bird in flight, by employing a sensor that triggers a camera when a beam of invisible infrared light is broken by the moving animal or by sleight-of-hand; the artist working as illusionist; carefully placing strings and light to pose a lifeless animal body. The motif of the animal suspended in air is pertinent; it is unfixed, it is neither here nor there; it is frozen within a void.

The use of a 10×8” large-format camera and life-size handprints provides a level of detail that allows the viewer to experience the subject in a strikingly intimate way. And yet, this abundance of detail is often balanced with a striking lack of information.

Andrew Bruce (1989) is an artist working with photography, moving image and sculpture. His works deals with both the animals position within the natural world and within allegory. Bruce is a recent graduate of the Royal College of Art, London.