Large Maroon

Artist Sarah Pickering British, born 1972

Date2005

MediumLight-jet print, laminated and mounted on Plexiglas

Dimensions32 x 74 in. (81.3 x 188 cm)

ClassificationsPhotography

Credit LineGift of Allen G. Thomas Jr. in memory of Emily Rosen

Object number2007.11.1

On View

Not on view

Label TextThis work is from a recent series by Sarah Pickering documenting simulated explosions at a training and demonstration site for the British police and military. The title of each photograph refers to the type of explosive device depicted.

The controlled explosives that are used for the disaster training exercises create spectacular pyrotechnics that are strangely beautiful. There is a jarring disjuncture between the quiet English landscape with its tiny yellow house and picturesque church--all part of a fake town constructed for the training exercises—and the destruction implied by the explosions in the foreground.

The same mock explosives are also used for special effects by the film industry and as Pickering’s photographs illustrate, in a era inundated by the hyper-realistic artificial worlds created in movies, computer and video games, it becomes harder and harder to separate the real from the artificial, the illusion from the fact. As Pickering has stated, “My work explores the idea of imagined threat and response, and looks at fear and planning for the unexpected, merging fact and fiction, fantasy and reality.”

[L. Dougherty, 2007]
ProvenanceCreated England, 2005; collection of the artist; [Daniel Cooney Fine Art, New York]; Allen G. Thomas Jr., Wilson, NC, 2005; given to NCMA, 2007.
Exhibition HistoryRaleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "The Big Picture," March 18-September 2, 2007. Object Rights Statement

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