Jannica Honey - Människor

Incorporating pictures of a child clutching a cigarette, a woman's bruised legs and a fair whack of naked folk, the latest show by Jannica Honey is an initially arresting affair. "Portraying [people] as they are is what I do. My photographs are a reaction to the fake visual culture of advertising and fashion," claims the Swedish artist. That may be so, but the exaggerated emotional content of Honey's awkwardly posed images seems to heavily reference the very medium she is reacting against. Her confrontational image of a brooding punk-looking gentleman leaning against a wall avoids this trap, but a photograph of a blank-faced girl holding a struggling cat by the scruff of the neck seems preposterously contrived. Her quest to create "real images" is most successful when a dash of humour is injected, as seen in her photograph of a young lad awkwardly clutching an air rifle, his apprehensive expression complimented beautifully by his half-hearted attempt to project himself as a man of action. [Celia Sontag]