Spectral Pastoral
Spectral Pastoral has grown out of a love of landscape paintings, prints and photography. In particular I’m interested in our emotive conceiving of the land, often expressed most vividly in pastoral and idyllic scenes. In our precarious historical time, such idylls seem like taunting, damning fantasies and the series plays on this.
Shot in woodlands, parks, gardens and farmland the photographs draw on the imagery of folk lore, fairy tales and myth - the enchanted spot in the forest, the reflective entrancing pond, the cottage in the woods.
This is the iconography of a deep-rooted attachment to the land; attuned to its beauty, harmony and cycles but wary of unease, danger, mystery just below the surface or just beyond our view. At a time when our relationship with the environment is both politically and ecologically a very pressing issue, I find myself increasingly drawn to these rich sensibilities.
Shot in woodlands, parks, gardens and farmland the photographs draw on the imagery of folk lore, fairy tales and myth - the enchanted spot in the forest, the reflective entrancing pond, the cottage in the woods.
This is the iconography of a deep-rooted attachment to the land; attuned to its beauty, harmony and cycles but wary of unease, danger, mystery just below the surface or just beyond our view. At a time when our relationship with the environment is both politically and ecologically a very pressing issue, I find myself increasingly drawn to these rich sensibilities.