Ecclesiastical forms

Vesturkirkjan, the west church, lies on a hill above Torshavn, the capital of the Faroe Islands. From most of the town it looks like a undecorated black pyramid. It looks as if an alien ship has landed. As you walk up to it you'll find this pyramid is actually made of copper and has a red tinge. When you reach the church you see that the facade facing away from town, is almost completely covered in glass. It is as if the church is turning away from the town. I doubt that is the intention though.

Swimming Pool Geometry

The sharp geometric lines blurred by the movement of water.

The contrasting colours of grass and pool

The repetition of pattern with the steps

12 months of The Field at Art Gene

For much of 2016 I have been exhibiting at Art Gene, "an independent (inter)national Research Facility", in Barrow in Furnace. I had a year long participation in their U-Hang exhibition programme. The exhibition consisted of a single image from my field project. Every month this image was updated with a new image taken in the previous month. The exhibition was like a small window from Barrow to the field I was recording just outside Edinburgh.

Exhibiting at Art-Gene has had a number of advantages, outside of the obvious exposure. It brought a visual consistency to my project. Due to exhibiting constraints every image had to fit in a portrait A1 poster frame. I appreciated this evenness of form required and returned to older images in the project to apply it to them. I now have a series of images that gel much better.

Committing myself to produce an image every month meant I had to be more disciplined. Previously I had probably been recording images of my field when it looked at its best. In the winter months it had been generally ignored. Suddenly I had agreed to produce an image every month and the first six months were over winter! This challenge only really dawned on me in late November when I was finalising the second image. By March I was pulling my hair out, the field hadn't changed one iota, apart from the saving grace of some snow in January. During this period I imprinted the topography of this piece of land in my brain. I built up a list of stock points of view to use if inspiration didn't hit. By the end I knew the field like the back of my hand. And now I have a more realistic record of the field over the year.

I would like to thank Art Gene for allowing me to exhibit in their lovely building. I would especially like to thank Ruth Pringle (U-Hang coordinator) for encouraging me to do this, believing in me and giving me this opportunity.

You can see the full field project here. The 12 images I exhibited at Art-Gene are above.