Artist Statement – Update

Well, I feel as though I have spent an age working on the three paragraphs I have written for my artist’s statement.  The last post on this got me so far, but I still didn’t think that it truly described by work.  I have been surprised, however, at how difficult it has been to write this when the body of work is so well advanced.  It is almost as though the work has had a mind of itself and I have been playing catch up trying to describe it.  The positive aspect of this struggle has been that I feel that the work is quite multi-layered and open to different interpretations therefore the statement had to point towards my intentions without leading the viewer too much.

I had also got it in to my mind not to use the word ‘I’ as I was worried that this would push the work back towards a Modernist approach which isn’t what I wanted to achieve.  However, I have now come to realise that this is ok as long as I am using this personal perspective to reflect a common concern rather than my own agenda.

Another feature that has helped me to develop this statement, but which has also meant that it has taken me quite sometime, is that I have tried to closely connect this statement with the theme of my major essay for Contextual Studies.  I felt it important that I fully understood the focus of my body of work so that I could use this as the focus of my essay too.  I am glad to say that this artist statement has helped to create the structure of my major essay as well as the introductory text to it.

The other point to raise is that while I was in the doldrums over this, it was through an e-mail conversation with a fellow student that rejuvenated my efforts to get me to this stage – thanks Stan is the phrase I need to say.

I am therefore now pleased to announce that I am quite happy with this statement and I feel that it really works with the images.  It certainly helps me when I go through the photographs so I am hopeful that it would be just as supportive for others.  I sense that the key words are at the end “It leaves open the question of whether this change is good or a threat to the way things were.”

For now, I intend to leave this statement open for a while.  I will come back to it later but hopefully I will still feel quite happy with it then as I do just now:

Lost Opportunities

This body of work investigates how changes of time, place and society can affect a person’s relationship with the land and place it forms.  It does so by comparing a Council estate in West Yorkshire where I grew up, with a more cosmopolitan area of Glasgow where I have just moved to.

Looking back at the Council estate, I recall ordinary places that became significant due to my engagement with them, and then reimagine a childhood paradise where I was free to engage with the land oblivious of the threat to this utopia from adulthood and society.  In Glasgow, I sought out similar opportunities for engaging with both the land and place to understand their potential of becoming significant to me and whether the notion of a childhood paradise could still exist today. 

The intention is to use personal experience to reflect on the ways in which society’s relationship with land and place has changed over time, and to consider the reasons for this.  It leaves open the question of whether this change is good or a threat to the way things were.

Chloe Dewe Mathews’ Shot at Dawn exhibition

This is my review of the Chloe Dewe Mathews’ Shot at Dawn exhibition held at the Stills Gallery in Edinburgh. It was part of an OCA study visit and so other students have already posted some very good reviews of this visit, namely Duncan Astbury, Yiannitsa Stevens and Mark Jones, which I am mindful of when writing my review. I have tried to focus this on my thoughts and response to the exhibition rather than an overview of Mathews work as I want to reflect on how this might link to my work.

I did a little research on this exhibition before I arrived so did have some understanding of the context and we did discuss it as a group before having time to review the exhibition. Her photographs are of seemingly ordinary places with no discerning connection between them until you note the text by the side of each image. The interplay between image and text is very important here as it creates significance to each place as locations where soldiers of World War I were shot for desertion.

In my mind, the work is commemorative towards the personal sacrifices and tragedies associated with this part of our history. It is a work that was commissioned 2 years ago, I presume not by accident, to coincide with this commemoratory year for Word War I. This allowed Mathews two years of research and investigation in preparation for this body of work. The strategy that she took is also an important feature of understanding this work and was discussed at length by the student group I was with.

The photographs on show were printed large, which I know is a modern feature but also one that helps these relatively banal subjects come alive. I wonder whether if printed smaller they would have had the same affect. This may be something that I will need to think about in the future as I am also photographing quite ordinary places for my body of work, which at the moment is focussed around producing a book, but what do I do if I want to exhibit them?

My overall response to this work was positive as I felt that the connection between photographs, text, and an understanding of the research behind it all interplayed in their presentation to the audience. Also, as time went by I began to notice objects within each photograph that could be interpreted as symbols associated with the theme of the work – a single tree representing a last man standing, trees on the floor of a woodland representing fallen men, an embankment as the wall for a firing squad. I wonder whether this was just me projecting thoughts into the images, or a specific strategy of the artist.

Overall, I think that this commemorative work was asking us to remember the human sacrifices, and sometimes abhorrent way that fellow humans can treat each other, as a lesson for the future – if we cannot learn from our mistakes then what hope do we have of not doing this again in the future? The land itself seems to have forgotten these events so as photographers and artists we need to use our skills to find ways of capturing our imaginations and making us think about such events, which I think that Matthews has been very successful in this endeavour.