From a series of landscapes and figures, two separate photographs are superimposed, the image behind appearing to float as a net or veil on the surface by a process of hand drawing/erasing in the computer. One photograph depicts the back of a head, the other a landscape both taken in different locations and reconstructed within a single image. Neither able to be fixed as a complete picture, the partial erasure of one reveals an incomplete picture of the other. The figures and landscapes are taken in different geographic locations and explore the possibility, through mobile technology, of being simultaneously in more than one place at any one time. The generic title of the work is Inside the View - after a series of collages by Max Ernst.
I have developed this approach of a double time of image making, drawing parallels between the speed and instant of the photograph/digital image and the economy of information technology. The reconstruction of these images through touch and the labour of the hand, signals the return to a more primitive and bodily experience.The work has evolved from previous explorations of the sublime to an engagement with both the retinal and the digital, where the hand drawn/erased element becomes the interface between the formal cliches of both landscape and portraiture particularly within the northern romantic tradition of painting. currently profiled in photoworks Journal autumn /spring 2005/6.