WHO?
I am a British artist living in Los Angeles. My father was an engineer and I spent my childhood watching him capture our lives on cine film. With accuracy and precision, he memorialised our adventures. He would set the scene, position us to capture the best take and make us smile in blinding sunlight. I wasn’t a happy participant. His physical absence from the footage was disconcerting to me. I realise now, that his need to document life in this way was a reflection of his own inner truth; a desire to frame his own melancholic memories.
WHERE?
I currently live in California, where the landscapes are vast and ever changing. I find visual narratives in the transience around me and I seek to make permanent all that is fleeting and nostalgic. Moments that are peculiar or forgotten, and characters that are overlooked interest me the most. I donʼt search for my subjects, I find that they are everywhere waiting to be seen.
WHEN?
I am never without my film camera, but I only use it when I am alone and better able to get lost in thought. My Father gave me my first film camera when I was 10. When he passed, everything that he shot was lost. This impermanence continues to inform my projects, as I am now using other peoples discarded negatives to re-invent and resurrect lives that were and could have been.
WHAT?
Time figures prominently in my work. I photograph the in-between and the astray. I look for moments that are open to interpretation, that are neither true or false. Instead a narrative is implied and transcends the boundaries of the scene itself. My images are not fixed, I believe they linger in cinematic reality.
WHY?
When I lived in England, I was a documentary filmmaker. My spousal visa to the USA altered my course, and halted my employment. My camera became an expression of this stagnation and challenged me to capture cinematic movement ironically in stillness. My work embodies this dichotomy. I find that our shared human unrest is best understood in quietude.
