VISUAL ART MONOGRAPH 2018

Kevin Marston

Photographer, Image Maker, Musician and Teacher

I was born in Cornwall. The far west of Cornwall - in the area known as West Penwith. In his excellent book ‘Rising Ground: A Search for the Spirit of Place’ Philip Marsden observes that ‘the Penwith peninsula is to Cornwall what Cornwall is to the rest of the country – a loosely connected appendage stuffed with the residue of a thousand stories and mythical projections. Every rock, every hill and cliff has its tales, lore and sprites. It has a mood all its own. It certainly does. Most people who have spent time there cannot help being affected by the motion and rhythms of cloud, wind and breaking seas – and experiencing that extraordinary light - playing on the mysterious shapes of granite cliffs, tors and megaliths. Growing up within this landscape gave me a deep appreciation of natural beauty and a respectful awareness of the power of the sea and it’s ever changing conditions. The place draws you in with an almost hypnotic force. It’s as though there’s a secret buried deep in the ground. Not always something you can see, but something you feel.

Vatersay:

Flying in to the ‘airport’ at Barra can be a precarious undertaking. The plane lands on the beach in the wide shallow bay of Traigh Mhor at the Northern tip of the island in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. It is a unique experience, being the only airport in the world where scheduled flights use the beach as a runway. Three of these runways are set out in a triangle on the sand, marked by permanent wooden poles at their ends. At high tide these runways are under the sea, so flight timings are important!

I had gone there to escape. I have had periods of depression during my life where the colour seems to drain out of the days and blank walls seem to be around every corner turned. I needed to recharge and re-energise. I have found at these times, when ebb is low, that making images gives me a positive kick, a sense of meaningful purpose. A way to step outside of myself. I agree with the Belgian photographer Harry Gruyaert when he says ‘I think of photography like therapy….’

Here was peace, solitude and serene beauty. The quietness almost deafening. I could walk, look, sit, listen and absorb this special place until the time felt right to make the images.

My art teacher at the Grammar School for Boys in Penzance was very fond of telling us that in 20 years of teaching he could only remember one boy who could draw! He would take us down to the harbour, sit us on the wall 20 ft above the water and tell us to look at it and ‘draw what we felt.’ He was refreshingly bohemian. He would then retire to a public house across the road, telling us to make our own way back to school when we had ‘had enough.’ Obviously Ofsted and Health & Safety hadn’t been invented then.

I have probably been influenced and inspired more by painters/sculptors than photographers. In no particular order –

Patrick Heron

Wilhelmina Barns-Graham

Peter Lanyon

Ben Nicholson

Alfred Wallis

Bryan Wynter

Barbara Hepworth

Richard Diebenkorn

Kurt Jackson

Terry Frost..... and many more

I went to school with Peter Lanyon’s son, Matthew. Peter Lanyon is an artist whose work I am particularly fond of. His blending of styles such as abstract expressionism, colour field painting and organic abstraction (guided by Ben Nicholson) led to the creation of some very vibrant and powerful work. Always both startling and uplifting, but at the same time deeply rooted in the powerful environment of Cornwall.

I also like his somewhat irreverent attitude to ‘art.’ At times, apparently, if he was having trouble with a canvas, he would lay it on the ground and drive over it in his car.

‘It usually improved it,’ he would say.

Some days I can make no images at all. Other days I can do nothing but make images. Each carries equal weight in the creative process.

To paraphrase Ansel Adams, I like to feel that I am making images rather than taking photographs. I am not particularly interested in merely documenting what is in front of my lens. I am more interested in trying to interpret the way I feel about it.

I’m in a factory yard in Bridport, Dorset. I found my way in through a hole in the fence and I’ve been looking at this wall for about 45 minutes. The wall is made from corrugated iron which has been painted in the past but is now peeling and rusting into a beautiful state of decay. I am often drawn to these places. I like to work at them carefully with all senses open to possibilities – like perhaps the construction of a poem or a piece of music. I shut out my surroundings and try to focus down into an almost meditative state….

Elliott Erwitt

This series I am working on I have called ‘found landscapes’ - landscapes within landscapes. It is a relatively sporadic body of work that is added to when opportunity presents the situation and then the mind/eye/ shutter reach a happy agreement.

A woman has come out from the factory office and is cautiously standing behind me, drinking a mug of coffee and smoking a cigarette.

‘We’ve been keeping an eye on you’ she says.

‘Why are you taking pictures of a boring rusty wall?’

I consider my response but decide that perhaps it’s time to move on.

I was travelling light so I had only one camera body and one lens with me. Not a particularly wise move, as on the first day there the lens seized up and stopped communicating with the camera body. Great start.

I had wanted to make some images in the partly abandoned village of Beli, near the Tramuntana forest in the north of the island.

I considered my options. Getting the lens repaired was not going to be possible in this location, while returning to the mainland would take too long. I thought about a book I had been looking at written by an American photographer called Chase Jarvis. He called his book ‘The Best Camera: Is the One That’s With You.’ I don’t think he was the first to use that phrase but the message was a good one. I had my iPhone with me which had a working camera in it. Up until now I had only used it as a sort of note/sketch book to take and save visual ideas for later work with a DSLR. I had not considered using it exclusively for any creative work. Here was the perfect opportunity to try – and, to be frank, if I wanted to make images, this was the only way I was going to be able to.

I spent the next few days immersing myself in the technical possibilities that this small device gave me, and rejoicing at once at the relatively small weight I was now carrying. I used Intentional Camera Movement (ICM) and Multiple Exposures (ME) and found several Apps that allowed me to do all the editing I needed to do ‘in phone.’

This was a bit of a Eureka moment for me, and since then I have used the iPhone camera more extensively for work that benefits from the obvious advantages of using a smaller and mostly always available device.

Parallels between music and photography are fairly well documented and I certainly see the similarities between the technical disciplines involved in both, as well as the multisensory processing that goes on in simplifying and refining framing and composition, speeding up reactions and heightening overall awareness and sensitivity. These processes are ever present in musical performance and appreciation also.

Ansel Adams said that he would often hear music while photographing (not in a sentimental way but structurally). ‘You see the relationships of shapes. I would call it a design sense. It’s the beginning of seeing what the photograph is.’ dover wight falling slowly turning tide

Hearing the light is another way of putting it. It occurs on an intuitive level but derives partly from practice and repetition. By breaking free from the form that you are trying to master allows true expression and freedom from deliberate action to flourish.

I have always tried (with varying degrees of success) to not be encumbered with or defined by too many rules. In my photography work I do not obsess about gear. I use the camera and lens that will help me to get the look and feel that I want. I don’t carry or use a tripod very often except for very long exposures.

I don’t read and follow camera manuals religiously either, or worry about the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to make photographs. I enjoy the thrill of experimenting and finding new ways of expression.

I rarely leave the house with a definite photographic plan - I prefer to let the day, weather, conditions and feel set the course for the image making. Some days will lead nowhere – others can hit on a rich seam.

“Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask ‘how?’ while others of a more curious nature will ask ‘why?’ Personally, I’ve always preferred inspiration to information.“

Man Ray

Some of the music involved in the creation of these images I have included in a playlist. I invite you to listen to some or all of them while you view.

A Suggested Playlist

Trimbas in Quarters – Moondog

Tiny Island – Leo Kottke

Jeg Har Sa Lun En Hytte – B J Cole

Greenwich Pier – Ana Silvera

Sketches of Spain – Miles Davis

Song to the Siren – Tim Buckley

Introit Opus 6 – Gerald Finzi

Requiem Opus 9. Introit & Kyrie – M. Durufle

Inner City, City Lights – Esbjorn Svensson Trio

Fletcher Moss Park – Matthew Halsall

Suite Bergamasque. L.75 – Claude Debussy

Space 21 (petrichor) from ‘Sleep’ – Max Richter

Gloria’s Step – Bill Evans Trio

Etude No. 5 – Philip Glass

0952 – Olafur Arnalds www.kevinmarston.com