Victoria Reichelt The Reading Room 6 October – 6 November 2005   Artists Statement  My work investigates the relationship between photography and painting, through the use of domestic and banal objects that have drama and narrative despite their prosaic nature. I source these slightly obscure objects from thrift stores and markets, so that they come with their own sense of history and personality. My work serves as an investigation into the act of painting where the painter’s relationship is to the photograph as well as with the object itself. In this way, the act of collecting and photographing the work in a controlled studio-setting holds as much importance as the subsequent putting of paint on canvas.   Currently my work is focusing on books and objects from libraries. The books I collect to paint are all second-hand, the tattered jackets reflecting their long years and multiple readings. The book is a paradox to paint, as once it is an image on canvas it is shut forever and can never be read. In a painting it serves a very different purpose from its intended function - it is purely an object like any other that has a history and narrative of its own, quite separate from the text inside. My aim is for the books to be alluring (due to the engaging cover-art and the way in which they are reproduced), but that they are also to some extent inaccessible, denying the desire of the viewer to read the books or know of their rich histories. Victoria Reichelt 2005