Forward Broadcast

Forward Broadcast, is an exhibition of recent prints by artist Sue Baker Kenton which, with an accompanying sound piece, create an immersive installation in the gallery at Leicester Print Workshop. Using both analogue and digital processes she has created images of two generations that reference classical portraiture, yet bring up questions about contemporary life. Here youth is presented in close up portraits of people under 30, imposing into the gallery space as a montage of etched prints which suggest the ubiquity of digital imagery, with the subjects each lost in the gaze of their mobile screens. This is counterposed by barely perceptible prints of the oldest generation whose silk-screened faces stare out at us as they disappear into the white wall. 

The exhibition is a platform for a multi-generational conversation about visibility, self-perception and the construction of identity; issues which are common to us all and can be traced through the history of portraiture, though pose very different challenges to the generations separated by the digital divide. Through her engagement with processes, materials, and the creation of a physically embodied experience of the works in the gallery, Baker Kenton’s use of printmaking brings a depth and humanity to her portraits–speaking to the complexity of our need to be seen, and the parallel struggles of each generation in constructing or holding on to a sense of self in the face of fading memory and digitally manipulated ideals.