Mike Curry’s ‘Fleeting Reflections’ Book Review

'Frilling and bubbling with no evident logic except sensual appeal' - it's a memorable quote from a free newspaper I read on the underground many years ago. It's a quote that is truly exceptional in describing the higher echelons of chaotic art that I have held close since then; a a quip so insightful, so clever that I have been hoping to use it to summarise something artistically impossible - and today is that day.

At a quick glance through this paperback, it’s hard to comprehend what this logically represents, but Mike Curry has landed a collection (somewhat too short) of abstract photography in his study of reflections in Canary Wharf. All I can do is envisage the context and location; for Mike it’s a mesmerising lunch hour filled with introspective and enlightening creativity, lens pointed at the water, the murmur of fag break conversation mutterings the longer he seemingly stares into nothing. It’s actually hard to imagine that there is even a camera involved (just like all good photographic art art) in this frenzy of electrified mathematical chaos. Paint splattering is too clumsy for Mr Curry, this is so fluid; this is far from the Pollocks that I have seen self appointed ICM wannabes produce.

The circles and lines he so effortlessly fits into the frame, overlap to the gentile revered arthouse of Bailey Chinnery; in fact although unassoiciated, this collection could be viewed as stable mate of their multiple impressionist exposures that I we have all secretly admired. Yet the text on the last page clarifies these are not camera techniques or a riot of Photoshop overlays; these are image studies, single photographs, flamboyant and impossible, from frenzies of colour to twisted tactile mouldings, fractions of a second, collated and assessed, suspended in time forever.

I wish this was larger hard back (not the wonderfully wrapped exercise book that its size immediately reminds me of...), but that’s a risky undertaking for any self published titles in this field, so Mike I truly understand. Each image would shine on high quality paper, in fact it’s destiny is surely to be enjoyed three by two metres minimum, hanging silently above London diners, like vast Rothko portals, snatching our gaze as we sip cocktails at a prestigious exhibition opening. 

Mike Curry’s Fleeting Reflections project is a success as a book, but it leaves me longing for longer study, with a bigger and grander output. There is no shelf to put this book as it sits perfectly between the otherworldly and the physical.