For Gallery ATARAH's first exhibition, Atarah Atkinson presents Bright Ruin—a series of photographic and mixed media installations created through self exploration amongst Rome's layered history. The city's visible cycles of destruction and renewal became a lens for examining personal transformation.

The work combines analog photography with sculptural elements: metal structures, fabric layers, and vintage frames that transform photographs into physical objects. Each material represents a different aspect of the self—what endures, what shifts, what carries history forward without being bound by it.

Atkinson created these pieces through responsive exploration rather than predetermined plans, following her intuition through Roman streets and allowing the environment to mirror her internal experience. The result is work that speaks to universal processes of change while remaining deeply personal—an invitation to recognize the continuous cycle of breaking down and rebuilding that shapes all our lives.

This body of work emerged from a period of personal devastation. Seeking a way to process the experience and overwhelming emotions, I turned to my art. As I began to explore the possibilities, I was drawn to Rome with its deep, rich history of continuous destruction and rebirth. Rome felt like the perfect emotional landscape for what I was experiencing - a space that had been claimed, destroyed, and rebuilt countless times, it had the layers of history, pain, beauty, and resilience I was looking for. 

Using the city as a physical representation of my internal experience, for ten days I explored with my emotions and perceptions at the forefront, hunting and capturing moments that resonated with what I was feeling. This process was deeply meditative—trusting my intuition as I followed light and shadow through the urban landscape, listening to the dialogue between my internal state and what the environment offered me. 

With my film cameras in hand, I captured intimate moments throughout the city - spaces and things that seemed to be having a conversation with me, or somehow grounded me in the moment. Through this perspective, these architectural spaces became living entities, each with their own stories of endurance and transformation. I was drawn to the bleak romanticism in the ancient marble pillars which had witnessed centuries of human experience, the peeling silk wallpaper in historic estates, roses both dying and blooming in secret Roman gardens, and the eerie iron hooks on top of St. Peter's dome—all these layers of reality where the sacred and mundane coexist, constantly being reborn in the present. 

By working with mixed materials I transform photography into three dimensional pieces that can even further embody my experience - the enduring skeleton of self that persists through trauma, the surface layers of hope that deteriorate and fall away through time, and even the the historical context that shapes but doesn't define us. Together, they help create physical manifestations of emotional architecture — revealing how strength and beauty can reemerge, even after destruction. 

This work represents my journey of taking something deeply personal and transforming it into tangible objects of expression. By using Rome's layered resilience as my canvas, I found a way to process my own experience while creating visual metaphors on the profound and universal human instinct to rebuild. 

For detailed information on available pieces from Bright Ruin, including our full exhibition catalog, pricing and specifications, please contact the gallery directly.

All inquiries can be sent to info@galleryatarah.com or by using our contact form.