B-store window space
Black and white marker pen on glass, acetate and Colorama paper.
To coincide with the Peter Jensen Tina collecton on sale in store, I created this installation.
Tina exhibition notes:
Tina - An installation by Charlotte Mann, in collaboration with Peter Jensen.
The Peter Jensen Spring/Summer 2007 collection: Tina was inspired by the American photographer Tina Barney. Charlotte Mann drew the back drop for the catwalk show of this collection, an 108 foot long black marker pen, line drawing, a life size recreation of the atmosphere of an interior from a Barney photograph.
Every element of this drawing, each plate, picture frame, armchair or can of coke was drawn from photographs in the book 'Theatre of Manners', although the point of view from which we see these elements in the drawing, and the way in which they are compiled is an invention of Charlotte's imagination. Through this process of making life size drawings directly from the experience of looking at the photographs Charlotte became incredibly familiar with the places, people and objects in the Barney photographs.
This installation is something that has grown out of that initial piece of work, especially that feeling of knowing the rooms of Barney's photographs so well. This knowing is made particularly tangible by the physicality of drawing life size: each object is handled in the imagination then set on paper according to the scale of the very hand doing the drawing, and the space is measured by the body of the person who is doing the drawing. Again these drawings are made in black marker pen, working from the photographs via the interpretation of imagination. This time the subject matter has a more direct connection with particular photographs: The main inspiration being Ada's Interior. The figures that inhabit this space are taken from other photographs (The Son, The Cousins, The Pink Lemonaid) but instead of wearing their own clothes they are all wearing items from The Peter Jensen Spring/Summer 2007 collection.
In Barney's photographs there is a distinct sense of the look of a thing. The objects, people and places she photographs feel looked at, seen and known. known with intense familiarity. However different the environment of the viewers home is from the homes in Barney's photographs the feeling of familiarity will be familiar. This installation is about the experience of being somewhere, somewhere real, peopled with real people in real clothes.