Into the wood

In her more recent work Victoria Fernandez has simplified her approach to form compared with her earlier staged, more theatrical photographs. 'Into the wood' and 'Ophelia', works from the late-1990s, are representative of this shift, the focus now upon the mysterious and strange within the natural environment. While the move to black-and-white photography from colour allows for a play between dark and light - and therefore the metaphors associated with both - Fernandez's concerns remain the same. She is fascinated with the evocative nature of the relationship between good and evil, exaltation and brutality. The symbolism associated with the way through a forest path or a lone black horse suggests something beyond the ordinary - an implied narrative perhaps, as cinematic as it is mythological.