With his use of photomontage and the integral role the ‘original’ image plays in the work, Richard Reddaway creates a conversation between sculpture and photography. Reddaway’s work, and the reproduction photograph he pairs with it, represent an original Bernini statue from 1622 - 1625. The work is based on the classical Greek myth of Apollo and aphne. Apollo, a God, became enamoured with the nymph Daphne and to escape his advances she transformed herself into a tree. It is a story of metamorphosis and Reddaway emphasises this by shifting the medium of the work, showing a sculpture turning into a photograph then to life, then to a photograph again, then finally a photographic collage. By recreating the sculpture through photographing models and then chopping and overlapping those images he gives the sculpture back the three dimensionality it lost through reproduction.
- extended label text for the exhibition 'After You', 2013.