HAND x KOOP PROJECTS Opening March 9th 6-9pm Brighton

ABOUT HANDS has been built around the idea of “Hands full of stories”. A natural and organic way to introduce Agenda’s HAND. series to Koop’s audience. Rogers juxtaposes Agenda’s striking black & white prints with the work of sculptors from Africa and Brighton, and the stories that their hands tell through their work. “The hands that Agenda captures are incredibly powerful, sculptural artworks and they are at their most powerful in their full glory,” says Koop’s founder, Helen Rogers. “I’m delighted to be showing this set of carefully curated images at a variety of scales, that show both their intimacy and their strength.”

Koop’s intention, as a gallery, is first and foremost about the stories and conversations between artistic practices in Africa and Brighton. The show features some of Agenda’s favourite images from the series, including some of his latest work. A beautifully bound set of 10 A5 images, each in their own protective sleeve and presented in a photographic archive folder will be available for sale, as will framed and unframed prints and the accompanying exhibition catalogue.

“I have had a lifelong connection and fascination for hand. Used for everything that we do in daily life, our hands can be the toughest things we possess, whilst being used for the most delicate operations, their tactile sensitivity capable of detecting a single hair.

This balance of strength and sensitivity that hands encapsulate is a metaphor for human nature. There’s a universal truth in hands that expands on the idea of narrative and communication held in the body, that have been core to my practice. Our hands often speak for us in an unselfconscious way, to join bits of conversation together, punctuate emotion and add layers of expression that shortcut, emphasise and signpost – they are our only other formal tool for communication.

With portraits, I’ve always been interested in the shape a person occupies in the space they are given and HAND. extends that exploration. To see a hand at a scale so much greater than it is in reality, zooming in on something that normally flashes past you in a split second in a conversation, asks you to examine it for a length of time you would never normally spend on it. There is a deeper looking, and for longer, that reveals so many layers in stillness.”

HAND. is available in three sizes, 25cm x 36cm, 50cm x 34cm [edition of 50] and 90cm x 60cm [edition of 50]. The collection is printed on Hahnemühle Bamboo and sold unframed, although frames and bespoke sizes can be commissioned to order.

Clients can also commission their own HAND_TRAIT by Agenda Brown.

Visit EDITIONS: HAND. at VISUALMARVELRY.COM to see the full series and see me talk about the project in a special documentary by LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS.

To mark the launch, Agenda is offering the opportunity to win a 36cm x 25cm print of DAPHNE ONE through his Instagram @studiomarvelry

Agenda Brown has been featured by the legendary SEAN TUCKER in his latest offering “MAKING PORTRAITS TO HONOUR PEOPLE”. They talked about Agenda’s particular approach to creating portraits – looking at individual character in the macro and micro, and exploring the limits of what portraits can be within a single frame, as a community of character, and as an unfolding series of details.