Eloise Donnelly

On entering the first room at Stuart Shave/Modern Art, the viewer is greeted with two colour saturated still life photographs of flowers in the German countryside, creating a gaudy brightness and sense of festivity that belies the ambiguous, dark undertones of the exhibition as a whole.

The collection forms a retrospective of Collier Schorr's photographs taken over the past 18 years in and around the small town of Schwabisch Gmund in Southern Germany. As an American Jew travelling to a remote part of Germany each summer, Schorr has assumed the role of participant observer within a small community. Referencing August Sander as an obvious influence, Schorr has documented the lives of the locals, yet by working through questions of national identity, gender and landscape which transcend the specifics she brings the tradition into the contemporary sphere.

Schorr's photographs portraying the awkward transition of adolescence, the theme for which she is best known, are displayed in the second gallery. Depictions of traditional boyhood activities, such as tree-climbing, are undermined by the subject wearing bright red lipstick, creating an uneasy sense of fantasy, while a traditional portrait of a boy wearing a tight shirt over his clothes blurs the boundaries of gender stereotypes.

Images of notions of Aryan beauty juxtaposed with a photograph of a Haywagon in the second gallery highlight the dialogue between Schorr's Jewish identity and that of the German landscape, clearly setting the tone for the third room. Displaying Schorr's photographs of (boys dressed up as) German soldiers, the room subverts both gender and social hierarchy with an ironic gaze. A German soldier standing in a wood to attention looks like a lost, lonely adolescent, while in another traditional military portrait the subject is shown holding a helmet full of fresh fruit. The strong sense of surveillance in the images is heightened by Schorr's own place as an outsider and intruder.

As well as being drawn to the emotive themes that Schorr raises, the viewer can also marvel at the level of craftsmanship in the creation of her images. Black and white photographs of visual ciphers - such as a porcelain eagle and fawn - are striking for the mastery of light and shadow and the deep texture created through the printing process. Her portrait Kate in Bed in the second gallery delicately captures vulnerability and resolve in equal measures, while the same subject Kate Asleep in the final room has a sculptural feel, referencing surrealism. It is these exhibits rather than the mixed media collages and drawings that really display her skill as an artist, securing her position within the contemporary photography canon.