LONDON.- Michael Hoppen Gallery presents Albarrán Cabrera: A Reality, a new exhibition by the gallery’s celebrated artists. Bringing together 30 works, the exhibition explores their distinctive approach and refined technique in print making. For the second exhibition with the artists, the gallery presents newly created large format works.

The exhibition title reflects the artists’ philosophical approach: a photograph is not reality itself, but a highly subjective and personal representation:

"Using photography we might not be able to answer the big questions about time, reality or space, but we are interested in exploring how a photographic image can make people think about their reality. Being aware is not just an important part of life, it is life as we know it. Using photography, we want the viewers to increase empathy and arouse interest towards their reality."

Through evocative imagery, predominantly focused on the natural world, Albarrán Cabrera offers a powerful sense of escapism, inviting the viewer into a realm of memory and contemplation.

Their distinctive vision is achieved using intricate printing methods on fine materials, executed by hand. These include processes such as Platinum/Palladium and pigment prints on Japanese paper, often made with thin layers of gold leaf.

Albarrán Cabrera are the photographers Anna Cabrera (b. 1969, Sevilla) and Angel Albarrán (b. 1969, Barcelona) who work together as a collaborative duo based in Barcelona.

The question running like a thread throughout their work is how images trigger individual memories in the viewer. Depending on their social and cultural backgrounds and on their personal experience, viewers will perceive images in completely different ways. Albarrán Cabrera are interested in subjects such as time, reality, existence, identity and empathy, but what they find the most fascinating is the relation between them. These relations are difficult to explain by means of words and that is why they rely on images.

We are particularly interested in memories. Our aim is to play with viewers’ memories and to construct a representation inside their minds. We never know what the final result will be, because individuals have their own exclusive memories and have grown up in different cultures and environments. Our images are the bare bones of this mental construction. There is a gap between reality and what we understand as real. And photography (as Japanese dramatist Chikamatsu once said about art) lies on the frontier between the real and the unreal, the true and the false. Photography helps us to ‘see’ what is hidden from us.

- Albarrán Cabrera