Posts tagged Artist
Florence Flood Aftermath
Inch by inch, floodwaters lowered, as daylight gradually left Florence on 4th November 1966. Oily black perimeter lines marked the water’s journey down façades: from a height of four adults in Santa Croce, each stage of this slow recession was charted in level horizontal lines of varying thicknesses. This process was repeated, unbelievably, over hundreds of acres. Clocks throughout the city sat stationary, reading 7:26 AM, when power in the city had been lost as the force of the inundation took hold that morning.

The force of the inundation had been relentless as it pounded streets, ripping apart ground floors and basements, shopfronts, signs, generators, garages, cars. It tore the city apart from the ground up over the course of an entire day. The devastating and deadly force of black water. Had it not been Armed Forces Day on the 4th (a national holiday), the streets would surely have been busier as the tides entered the city early in the morning. 

I've dedicated the last couple of years to researching and responding to this catastrophic historical event (drawing parallels with weather extremes of today). Through this research I've come across all sorts of ephemera (newspaper articles and clippings, magazine features and appeals for help, short-run flood related publications...) but by far the best is these photographs. I purchased this set of prints last year, from a vendor who did not know the history or provenance of their lot. I've asked around and searched extensively for evidence of these images (by an unknown photographer) in other archives, with no results. If you know anything about these images please do get in touch. I'll be featuring a selection of these scanned prints in my book Perimetri Perduti set for launch on November 4th this year: the 50th anniversary of the flood.

Studio: Stow

These analogue 35mm stills document my ever-changing Stow studio. Captured with a 1984 Canon AV1, these images are an incredibly important aspect of my practice. Over exposed, or with expired film, these images document small moments, that – when taken together – illustrate not only how I work and where my ideas come from, but also the hoards of antique objects that inspire the creative process.

Wherever I've worked over the last six years (I've had studios in Edinburgh, Glasgow & Brussels; I've made work in France, Spain & Italy too) I've always returned here to Stow in the Scottish Borders to draw exhibitions and projects to a close. 

 
 
These new photographs on old film effect a curious folding of time. They have a quality of age, so that today looks like a postcard from years before. As [his] paintings enact an encounter of solid things, lodged in time and place, with endlessness and timelessness - the momentary glimpses of memory, the seascapes’ unending motion, represented on particular objects with particular histories - so the camera’s lens opens, and ‘now’ is captured on film that dates from ‘then’.

There is a motif of journeying and standing still, represented in a number of [his] photographs ... See here the warm interior of the studio, objects slant-lit, gathered in their taxonomies, bundled, piled, and at rest.
— Author Ian Tromp
Surface: Exhibition Photography

A set of paintings that explore the concept of the surface. Created using non-traditional methods and painted on unconventional surfaces, these repetitive, layered artworks are unified by their exclusive depiction of water. From heavily layered oil paintings created outdoors over several years, to miniature gouache artworks painted on matchboxes or coffee grinder drawers.

The exhibition (and ongoing series) features images of water surveyed whilst travelling: the Atlantic from Cádiz, the Adriatic from Dalmatia, the Mediterranean from Liguria. Many too, are abstracted visions of the English Channel ('Mor breizh') - the strip of water I must cross to reach France, Belgium, Spain and Italy - where I source the materials and supports upon which I works. From Paris’ plethora of antique shops to Brussels’ frequent flea-markets, I source and gather every-day items (wooden, metal, and paper planes) suitable to be brought back to the studio and transformed into the foundation of each artwork.

These are artworks made from ordinary objects that speak of function and familiarity: tabletops, drawer bases, trunk lids, roadsigns, books & papers. Aged items and objects that describe a lifetime of use in their worn grains – a kind of repetition that is mirrored in the marks of each piece, the obsessive documentation of a singular subject.