Recent Work
"Our usual recourse is...to cast about for objects which offer parallels to dimly sensed aspects of the new situation, to use the better known to illustrate the less known, to discuss the intangible in terms of the tangible” M.H. Abrams

Ali Truter's work draws its inspiration from her interest in philosophy, sculpture and educational illustration. Featured are a selection from the following projects 'Pharmakon, ' 'The Elusive Essence of Knowledge' and 'Thinking of One Thing in Terms of Another.....' The style of her work has been described as “a cross between ebay photography and a classical photographic still life.”

This staged and deadpan style of working was initially inspired by research on photography's multiple roles, specifically as an aid to education and learning. The interest here is where photographs act outside of the status as art objects, instead having the function of providing clear explanations and visual information. “The objects that I choose to photograph range from incomplete educational models to puzzles and everyday household objects, all are photographed in a stark repetitive way which emphasises their factual, functional nature as well as their remoteness”

Many of the images are deliberately obtuse, and unaesthetic, as if they might be failed illustrations for educational textbooks or a children's' encyclopaedia where they might have provided factual information on some incomprehensible aspect of everyday life. The images also have strong links to sculpture and the ready-made, exploring the overlap between photographing sculptures for documentation purposes and photographing ''things' as 'still life' in 'classical fine art photography. Underlying all the photographic works is the emphasis on the inadequacy of these concrete objects when used to represent complicated abstract ideas. It is this contradiction that leads towards the sense of absurdity within the work as the images themselves take on an airless quality as if within each image a photographic stalemate has been reached.

Ali Truter has a 1st classs BA Hons Editorial Photography from Brighton University. She currently resides in Brighton and is a full time freelance artist and photographer.

Selected Exhibitions And Events include; 2000 Brighton University degree show, 2000 Works purchased by the Mag collection. 2000 Arles International Photography Festival France, students. 2001 Visions International Animation Festival, Brighton University. 2002 Brighton Open House '111' group show. 2003 Additional works purchased by the Mag Collection. 2003 Brighton Photographic Biennial Fringe Festival, Brighton. 2004 Booth Museum of Natural History, Brighton (solo show). 2005 Commission undertaken for the Mag collection. 2006 Brighton Photography Biennial Fringe Festival, Pharmakon at TRAID (solo show). 2006 Portfolio reviews in conjunction with Brighton Photography Biennial 2007 Things We Love, Kalman Crane contemporary photography gallery Brighton