A Study in the Vertical
As an artist, I am not interested in answering questions but in asking them and proposing alternative ways of observation. The medium’s status is the central theme in this work. Using light, colour film, photographic paper and chemicals, I propose a number of questions to engage viewers in examining conventional bonds to the photograph. In employing some of the techniques used in Colour Field art in 1950s American painting, I aim to converge photographic dialogue on to form and shape. Using only the basic elements necessary to create photographs, through methodology that underlines colour, I explore new possibilities for the photograph.
A Study in the Vertical consists of a series of linear, saturated abstract photographs. These photographs were created using photographic paper, and light applied through filters in a common enlarger.
The photographs are non-representational in their content, but also in their form, as they were created without the use of a camera. They are a study in light, colour and form composed of a variety of hues, tones and tints and not limited to a particular pallet. Each photograph in this series is an original, these works cannot be reproduced and exist only as unique objects; their purpose is to entice the viewer to think about photography as a medium whose quality need not be directly linked to its ability to depict reality.