Tom Leighton

Kynance

Kynance is an ongoing series which focusses on the extraordinary force of volcanic geology. In this landscape we are confronted with rare evidence of the colossal pressures which once created the surface of the earth. I am finding that lockdown has, for me, forced a shift of focus. While environmental and political change accelerates at an unprecedented rate, I am now looking at transformations which happened over a very different timescale. These images feature a terrain which would seem to be immutable, belying its turbulent and explosive past. The rock formations signal a manifestation of the planet’s physical history: times of stability veined with turbulent change, fault lines which can be seen as a metaphor for our current human landscape. The colours reference the vibrancy of volcanic eruptions, the molten rock and toxic hot gases - demonstrating also a process billions of years old, which must inevitably remain mysterious and imagined in spite of the clues which a science of the earth can offer. An unnatural palette enhances both the otherness of these rare formations and the inherent vivid appearance of the crystal flecked and veined serpentine rock. Here the towering and tumbling forms, with their scaly layered surface, become creature-like, each with an individually defiant and imposing personality.

Photographer

Tom Leighton

Tom Leighton is an artist, photographer and printmaker. Fascinated by the urban environment, he has photographed and worked with iconic and hidden architecture world-wide. He has photographed both ancient cities and the newest metropolises built on land reclaimed from the sea.
Trained at the Royal College of Art, London, Leighton expertly manipulates images to allow us to imagine alternative cities of the present and the future. He seeks beauty in everything, from functional buildings to the most ornate architecture. He repeats motifs in unexpected places, repositions existing structures and contrasts the natural and the artificial: bright city lights set against natural night skies, concrete against greenery, business against eerie nighttime stillness. Leighton asks us to reconsider our cities, what they are and what they might become. He pushes us to notice the beauty inherent in these populated places, the architecture and our place within it. At once futuristic and reflective, Leighton’s work demands multiple takes.

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