Patrick Keiller London

London is a film by the British director Patrick Keiller. London cronicles a year in the life of the city (1992), from the eyes of the unseen protagonist Robinson. The film, narrated by Paul Scofield, recounts the actions of Robinson and is shot almost as a mosaic of moments describing various scenes of life in London which coincide with the narration.

Watch Patrick Keiller's London in Entertainment  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

BFI review of the film.
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/497617/

Interview with Patrick Keiller
http://www.kamera.co.uk/interviews/a_quick_chat_with_patrick_keiller.php

Transition Exhibition

I recently took part in an exhibition with a group of students with work based around the theme of isolation. I chose to show a series of my images taken in North Greenwich, arranging them as a photo-essay. 

Dali

"The photographic lens can caress the cold smoothness of white lavatories; pursue the drowsy lassitude of aquariums; analyze the most subtle articulations of electrical appliances with all the unreal precision of its own magic. In painting, on the contrary, if one wishes to paint a jellyfish, it is still absolutely necessary for him to depict a guitar or a harlequin playing the clarinet."

Salvador Dali – “La fotographia, pura creacio de l’esperit” (photography, pure creation of the spirit!). l’almic de les arts September 30, 1927 

Another grey day in North Greenwich

A New Direction

In a departure from my previous work in which I have explored the refuse and objects that have been left behind by people during their day to day lives I have now begun to look at areas of undeveloped landscapes and there surroundings. The main areas that I been looking are two fenced off undeveloped plots of land in North Greenwich. I chose to focus on this area because of the varying developments around the undeveloped land, industrial buildings, newly built modern housing, hotels and garden centres. 

While exploring this area I have focused on both the boundaries and edges of the plots of land, the surrounding sites and on textures.  

North Greenwich

"I am not very fond of Color"- Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida 

Devendra Banhart

An excellent mix of art and music.

Devendra Banhart ~ Baby from Ron Winter on Vimeo.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1575990/devendra-banhart-art-and-music

Idris Khan - Every... Bernd and Hilla Becher

Ghostly images created by the British artist who's work centres around superimposing iconic images or texts one on top of the other to create a single image; in this case those of the German artists Bernd and Hilla Becher. For me the appeal of these images is the way that they take on a whole new form to those of the original Becher images and how they almost seem to be taken away from being photographs, becoming pieces which resemble rough sketches or paintings.   

m still.

"Idris Khan’s Every... Bernd And Hilla Becher... series appropriates the Bechers’ imagery and compiles their collections into single super-images. In this piece, multiple images of American-style gabled houses are digitally layered and super-imposed giving the effect of an impressionistic drawing or blurred film still. The structures in the Bechers’ original photographs are almost identical, though in Khan’s hands the images’ contrast and opacity is adjusted to ensure each layer can be seen and has presence. Though Khan works in mechanised media and his images are of industrial subjects, their effect is of a soft ethereal energy. They exude a transfixing spiritual quality in their densely compacted details and ghostly outlines. ...Prison Type Gasholders conveys a sense of time depicted in motion, as if transporting the old building, in its obsolete black and white format, into the extreme future."

http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/idris_khan.htm

Bernd and Hilla Becher

http://www.americansuburbx.com/2009/01/theory-interview-with-bernd-and-hilla.html

http://www.tate.org.uk/research/tateresearch/tatepapers/04spring/stimson_paper.htm

Gas Tower

Michelangelo Antonioni - L'eclisse

L'eclisse (The Eclipse) is a film by the Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni set on the outskirts of Rome depicting the relationship that forms between the central characters and also the relationship that occurs with the environment and architecture of the world around them. 

"His ideas for films are born of visual epiphanies, fleeting but revealing glimpses of the world around him."

"What Antonioni finds in the environment is immensely rich and aesthetically coherent." 

Quotes taken from Antonioni - or The surface of the world

Film stills

"His ideas for films are born of visual epiphanies, fleeting but revealing glimpses of the world around him."

http://dvisible.com/2009/03/02/the-architectural-vision-of-michelangelo-antonioni’s-the-eclipse-1962/

Evolution of a piece

Continuing on from the idea behind my photocopy collage I began to think more about layers and traces hidden by time. Walking past this wall with peeling paint and weather damage almost everyday it seemed like an excellent opportunity to explore this idea. As the wall was too large for me to photograph successfully in one image I decided to create more layers and depth by using multiple photographs to form composites of the surface of the wall which would therefore mimic the layers and traces of paint. From this point I then decided to separate the composite photographs to create a grid with which to display the different layers of both the 'joiner' and the paint to create a sort of history of the wall. My intentions with the final evolution of this piece was that when placed on a wall it would blend in with the surround paint or surface to create in a sense the history of what could potentially be hidden beneath the surface to only be revealed by peeling it back. 

 A selection of the composite images.

The full montage

Final Layout

^ Exhibition images 

Hockney "Joiners"

“I’m interested in all kinds of pictures, however they are made, with cameras, with paint brushes, with computers, with anything,” - David Hockney 

Hockney has always been interested in photography. He first used it as preparation for his painting, but during the 1970s photography gained an independent role in his work. Using 35mm commercially processed color prints, Hockney created photocollages, which he called “joiners” until the mid 1980s. He compiled them to create a 'complete' picture from a series of individually photographed details. In the 1980s, Hockney primarily experimented with the Polaroid camera, making composite images of photographs arranged in a rectangular grid.

His collage technique explores the mysteries and nuances between natural and camera vision. Although, his subject matter ranges from portraiture to still life, his style from representation to abstraction, Hockney uses photography to examine our perception of reality. Family, friends, and collaborators and his own residence, the pool, his dogs, and the California and Arizona landscape are seen in many of his photocollages.

http://www.absolutearts.com/artsnews/2001/07/24/28901.html

http://www.moca.org/museum/exhibitiondetail.php?id=8

Photocopy Collages

Experimental photomontages using photographs and photocopies of photographs. Inspired in part by the David Hockney's 'joiners' and by the idea of hidden layers and peeling to reveal. 

Re-photographing

After having used photocopies of images in my previous work I have now begun to look at the idea of re-photographing photographs taken by well known photographers. I was inspired in doing this by Sherrie Levine's series After Walker Evans series in which she  famously appropriated a Walker Evans exhibition catalog First and Last. 

Sherrie Levine - Untitled 1979

After Walker Evans 

The pictures that I have re-photographed are taken from William Eggleston's Los Alamos and Stephen Shore's Stephen Shore. I chose to use these specific books because they are two of my favourite photography books. 

William Eggleston - Los Alamos

Stephen Shore - Stephen Shore

Photographs taken of a photocopy of
Chas Kincaid grocery store, Camp Bowie Blvd, Fort Worth, Texas. June 16, 1976

From the series Uncommon Places

U.S. 97, South of Klamath Falls, Oregon. July 1973

From Uncommon Places