Stark Image - Koo Stark

Koo Stark has encountered many celebrities professionally throughout her career and this has inevitably given her opportunities to focus on portraiture. This is the genre on exhibit at Zari Gallery this year, aptly titled Stark Image. These iconic portraits, all shot in black and white and including some original platinum prints, have been carefully selected and curated for this exhibition. Koo is, as Norman Parkinson said, an original thinker with the camera. Her sense of composition, light and contrast is faultless and she captures the moment – so crucial in photography – masterfully and sensitively to document not only the character of her subject but also their intimate thoughts in that particular setting. Koo attributes these skills to her teacher Norman Parkinson who, as she recalls, “taught me about light and told me to look at the old masters, starting with Caravaggio”. Koo Stark continued her photographic education by studying the greats of photography, including the work of Angus McBean, who she later photographed alongside his portrait of Vivien Leigh and also Horst P Horst who she later photographed alongside his portrait of Edith Sitwell which is in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London. All the images in this exhibition are from actual vintage negatives shot in the 80s and 90s. They are reviewing the phenomena of celebrity and documenting life in an astute manner.
Koo’s photography betrays the highest technical standards but the artistic impulse - at times applied with some humour and joyous love of life - is always there, always alert to the moment. Another notable quality of the photographs in Stark Image is the perceptive and entertaining nature of the imagery, from the moment Koo has chosen to capture, to the actual character of the subjects – all great characters and personalities. It takes great courage and confidence to photograph and match the strength of character of the sitter but Koo does this differently with every one of her subjects; her eye and mind sensitively adapt to the essence of the subject and the moment in which they are captured.

Koo has always seen photography as an art form rather than just a craft. It can be argued that Koo is one of the first photographers who when at Hamiltons Gallery turned Photography from craft to an art form. This is important more than ever in today’s world of digital media, iPhones and instant results. In Koo Stark’s photography we see the importance of understanding light and the use the camera not merely as a tool but as an extension to the trained eye. She shows us with effortless grace and aesthetic astuteness that it is the use of light that captures the moment.