Murder at the Manor

When Hot journalist Erica Smith visited the Lucy Bell gallery in Norman Road the other day, she had to break through a police cordon and found herself staring at a masking tape outline where a body had recently fallen…

Lucy Bell’s gallery features photographic work of a very high calibre – we are lucky to have it here in St Leonards. It is usually only in city art galleries that you can look at archive work by photographers like Lee Miller or Colin Jones. Bell punches above her weight with contemporary photogaphers too – the last exhibition, by Lisa Creagh, received national attention.

I had imagined Lucy Bell to be a silver-haired aristocrat with an aquiline profile and a sharp tongue. It was a surprise to find a young woman with an engaging manner and full-colour personality. However, because she was preparing for her new show by Margate-based photographer Roger Hopgood, she definitely had murder on her mind.

This series of photographic prints focus on country house interiors that seem to conjure up an atmosphere of intrigue and malice. The title of the series, And Then There Were None, is taken from an Agatha Christie novel and the pervading mood in the work conveys the sense that something untoward has occurred in this very English setting.

Within the interiors, each image contains a mysterious, Magritte-like object collaged into the space with careful precision, such that one wonders at first whether it is life size and the room around it miniature. One effect of this is that the grandeur and authority of the rooms is diminished. Whether we read the rooms as doll-size or connect them with the trivialities of popular culture – the whodunit drama or the board game Cluedo – the rooms no longer seem to have the power to interpellate us.

This combination of elements – the heritage interior, the Picturesque, the murder mystery – may strike us as an incongruous mix but not perhaps when one bears in mind that many English country houses of the 18th century can be linked with slavery and imperialism, and all existed within a culture of pronounced division of rich and poor. Images such as Ballroom with Milking Stool or Drawing Room with Pheasant (above) seem to point us towards this trail of enquiry.

Come and work out the mystery for yourself. The show runs from 7 July–11 August 2012 at the Lucy Bell gallery in Norman Road, St Leonards. Details of opening hours on the website.

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