The last few months have seen me spending more time writing for other people’s projects and not so much here. As well, I’ve been getting ready for a group photographic exhibition as part of completing my creative photography studies at the Centre for Creative Photography.
Our exhibition launches Friday the 7th of March at the National Wine Centre. I hope you can come along.
What follows is my artist’s statement for that endeavour. Enjoy.
Artist’s Statement: The Vanishing North
“…all land, no matter what has happened to it, has over it a grace, an absolutely persistent beauty.” from the artist’s statement for ‘The New West’, by Robert Adams, 1974
The world is changing. It always has been, even when we were so young we thought it would stay the same forever. The landscape, unlike the continent beneath it, changes so rapidly and so thoroughly that if you don’t pay attention you won’t see it happen. These changes are at times beautiful, but more often they are ordinary and urbane, if not ugly. Too often, they are irreversible.
As houses fill in the horizon, what space is left for contemplation? And is what remains beautiful or is it scarred? Look to the landscape that I grew up with. The landscape of memory can sometimes purify how things really were. It wasn’t pristine, but it was productive. It wasn’t grandiose or heroic. It was a place that people worked and lived. It was as diverse as the stories of the people that lived there.
The memory of this place is still there, out North and North-West, but it’s vanishing. And to find it, the whole story of it, I had to go beyond my own backyard.
It was only a short journey, but it was a long way back in time.
