Artist statement
SYSTEM OBSERVATION
I am interested in the idea of systems thinking and Monet's observations of haystacks - the change of light falling on them hour by hour. I use a 16mm cine camera to photograph at fixed intervals the changing aspect of a systemic event. The individual film frames which result from such an observation are scanned and sequenced into a grid.
The experience of watching the event, the passage of time counted out by the rhythm of my releasing the shutter (usually 1 frame every 10 seconds), is later mirrored as I place each frame into the grid. The resulting image is autopoietic - that is to say that the composition derives not from my own hand, but from the sequenced individual photographs of the event itself. I find this in itself absolutely fascinating - a revelation of a system as a whole through an assemblage of individual moments.
The aesthetic experience derives entirely from the (complex) act of observation - whilst the construct itself appears both as a representation and a true documentation of reality.
LANDSCAPE COLLAGE
Essential to the process of creating a landscape image, is being there within the landscape itself and overlaying impressions and perceptions in my mind. I use a camera to capture and record this experience as a visual record, photographing the numerous individual elements which unselfconsciously catch my eye.
Back in the studio, in a long and painstaking process, I reassemble these elements, layer upon layer. Hundreds of image fragments form the final picture, with a fluidity and interconnectedness that express both the actual and imagined - an omnijectivity of the plural viewpoint. This is how the mind conceives the landscape - both in the present of seeing it, and creatively as a memory. Memory is collage.
