Work in progress, North Norfolk Coast

Having taken a series of photographs of my walk at Burnham Ovary Staithe, I considered how to proceed in order to create new work which followed on from the circular tondo pieces that I discussed in my previous post. The shifting marshes and dunes appeared to be an obvious point of reference on account of their ephemeral, transient nature and formation as a result of the layering and deposition of sand and mud constantly moving, re-forming and changing according to the natural processes and mechanisms working upon them. I began to consider ways in which it would be possible to visually represent these changeable landscapes within my work in a more literal and recognisable fashion than their portrayal via my tondo pieces. Initially I began by printing out some of the sections from the panoramas that I had amalgamated:

I experimented with different ways of presenting the photographs and decided that making them black and white resulted in a much starker visual impression. The imagery appeared bleaker, crisper and more distinct, whilst also creating the impression of looking back in time. Similarly by abandoning colour which has been such an overriding preoccupation within my practice allowed me to experiment with other aspects within the work without allowing my compostions to be dominated by strong, non-naturalistic and overbearing colours.

Although I found the black and white photographs to be visually distinct I decided that it would be interesting to add some additional distortion that would help to make the images appear more ambiguous, hazy and indistinct. 

As with my earlier attempts of introducing pattern into the landscape compositions of Mousehold Heath I wished to continue to experiment with ways of breaking up the surface as a way of alluding to some form of underlying tension or drama. Rather than introducing an additional element as in the case of the geometric patterns I was looking for some way of generating visual distortion that was not separated from the images themselves but functioned as a part of the imagery. In doing this I hope to allude to some form of disconnection occurring between myself and the landscape.

I experimented by scanning in print outs of the above landscape sections whilst moving them about during the scanning process, which resulted in the following set of images:

I increased the contrast of the images so they appeared more definitively black and white. I was especially pleased with the distortion and glitches that were created via the process of moving the images during the scanning process. Whilst still possible to make out elements of the dunes and marshes it created an element of uncertainty which combined effectively with the increased black and white contrast. Although there are still recognizable landscape elements there is a distinct shift and slippage that occurs as if the landscape is beginning to slide, transform and break up into something else that incorporates elements from the landscape, alongside elements which reference technology and the digital era.

Other elements which I felt added to the effectiveness of the imagery included their blurry, smudged, unfinished quality whilst the glitches whereby the scanner could be seen on the edge of the picture plane helped to create the sensation that these were otherworldy, indistinct places which had somehow how become unhinged and were slipping away from a solid grounding in reality.