Annette Kelm Laceleave (Shadow), 2021, 2021
122 x 92 x 4 cm (framed)
Laceleave (Shadow) is a work from Annette Kelm’s series of floral still-life arrangements. The work depicts a number of flowers satnding upright in a metal spring itself held by a glass. The background is created from what appears to be a purple sheet of cardboard, its edges visible. Juxtaposing the bright organic materiel with the regular human-made shapes made from hard, sometimes shiny, metal, the spring is a recurring object in Kelm's flower series and bespeaks the artist's use of objects from her daily life and immediate surroundings: a factory producing such springs is located near her studio.
The integration of these objects into the compositions and the deliberate inclusion of formal inconsistencies in alignment of the bright paper backgrounds, draw attention to the act of arranging the motifs. These self-referential allusions to studio photography, to the artificiality of its staging, are a characteristic gesture in Kelm's practice, whose works are always imbued with a deep knowledge of and reflection on the medium of photography and its history.