ENTRY DESCRIPTION
This work was produced in London in 2021. The image holds a specific interest to me as it's organic nature represents life, it's skin and tone are textured but the shape conveys architectural meaning that generates the feeling of a solid sculpture and a perceived rigidity.

Why HAND.? “I have had a lifelong connection and fascination for hands,” says Agenda, “Used for everything that we do in daily life, our hands can be the toughest things we possess whilst being used for the most delicate operations, their tactile sensitivity capable of detecting a single hair.”

This balance of strength and sensitivity is a metaphor for human nature, Agenda believes. “There a universal truth in hands that expands on the idea of embodied narrative and communication that have been core to my practice.” Our hands often speak for us in an unselfconscious way, to join bits of conversation together, punctuate emotion, and add layers of expression that shortcut, emphasise and signpost. At the same time they are our only other formal tool for communication – linguistic (sign language, semaphore) and narrative (Indian mudras, Japanese Noh, shadow puppetry).

Hands are also graphic, sculptural, totemic, resulting in almost zoomorphic expressions as the body takes on metaphoric qualities. “With portraits, I’ve always been interested in the shape a person occupies in the space you have given it, and HAND. extends that exploration.” “To see a hand at a scale so much greater than it is in reality, zooming in on something that more normally flashes past you in a split second in a conversation, asks you to examine it for a length of time you would never normally spend on it. There is a deeper looking, and for longer, that reveals so many layers in stillness.

AUTHOR
“Agenda Brown as the creative protagonist of Visual Marvelry™ and generator of visual stories, possesses a rare ability to capture his subjects in a discerning, empathic manner, and is a natural observer of commonality and differences in all of us.

He has successfully developed a substantial imprint as an original photographic commentator and an authentic observer of active and dynamic cosmopolitan artists, creatives, and social entrepreneurs.

Capturing individuals with a cinematic scale, whilst providing creative expression and authenticity to context and environment, Agenda shines a light on the authenticity of the individual characters and the detail of their personality against a worldly context.

People are viewed as a rich matrix of personalities, as dynamic characters set within an everyday urban scenery, but each with sensitive and extraordinary narratives.

Agenda’s focus is always empathetic as well as discerning, warm but objective, inquisitive but never intrusive, and validated by his creative style that empowers the personality of the subject to ultimately shine through and animate the photographic image.”

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