Tuesday 7 September 2010

1000 Words Photography - The Collection

We are pleased to present three photographs from Virgílio Ferreira for the 1000 Words Collection.






















Medium - 1 available
Edition of 15
£700.00
50 x 50 cm paper size
40 x 40 cm image size

NB: This is a Giclée print on Epson Premium Lustre paper. It comes with a certificate signed by the artist and is number 1 from the edition. Each print is produced with a white border around the photograph to allow for framing. We also have included some cotton gloves to protect the print during handling.























Medium - 1 available
Edition of 15
£700.00
50 x 50 cm paper size
40 x 40 cm image size

NB: This is a Giclée print on Epson Premium Lustre paper. It comes with a certificate signed by the artist and is number 1 from the edition. Each print is produced with a white border around the photograph to allow for framing. We also have included some cotton gloves to protect the print during handling.























Medium - 1 available
Edition of 15
£700.00
50 x 50 cm paper size
40 x 40 cm image size

NB: This is a Giclée print on Epson Premium Lustre paper. It comes with a certificate signed by the artist and is number 1 from the edition. Each print is produced with a white border around the photograph to allow for framing. We also have included some cotton gloves to protect the print during handling.

All images © Virgílio Ferreira

Taken in and around the burgeoning Asian cities of Bangkok, Macao, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai and Tokyo, the photographs in Virgílio Ferreira´s series Daily Pilgrims are portraits of anonymous passers-by ensnared by his lens.

The faces are routinely blurred whereas the backdrop remains in focus, creating a seductive unreality that leaves an evocative impression without actually describing the specifics of the place. It is this precise "information deficit," Ferreira says, which is what "catches the eye of the observer and makes the portrayee stand out, also adding enigma."

By creating a symbolic tension between the subject and the setting, Ferreira has managed to poetically conjure up the feelings of solitude and alienation that are by-products of modern city living. Commenting on such places, he says, "in all of them, territory and behaviour are changing fast. Cities seem to mirror our state of mind and reveal secrets that can be decoded when minute details are looked at: it is between the lines that I seek ambiguities and contradictions."

Ferreira´s gaze is swift and furtive, presenting the viewer with glimpses of people´s untold stories. One image foregrounds a smirking youngster who exposes his tattooed arm to us while soaring sky scrapers loom large in the distance; in another, a face is simultaneously assailed and attacked by the street lights, this time spindly branches of trees sprout up behind. Elsewhere, as lovers embrace on a park bench their liquid outline almost melts into the brightly-lit futuristic building, the image becomes imbued with an emotional atmosphere that is typical of the entire series.

As such, Daily Pilgrims provides a fresh perspective on the tradition of street photography and offers a vision of the East that is so strange yet so familiar.

Collections is a new initiative that has been set up by Troika Editions to provide photography organisations with the opportunity to showcase their own art collections online and pursue alternative funding avenues through the sale of limited edition prints.

As a not-for-profit organisation the net proceeds from all sales of limited edition prints in the 1000 Words Collection will go entirely back into supporting 1000 Words Photography Magazine and help finance our extended programme of exhibitions and events including workshops; portfolio reviews; talks; panel discussions as well as prizes and awards.