The Process
It starts with a photograph...
Sometimes I make a special trip to visit a particular place, sometimes I'm just out and about. I can often be found just pottering about on a deserted beach, finding objects washed up and generally taking photographs with either my Canon EOS or just a mobile phone camera.
Inspired by patterns in the natural world, the seas and oceans in all their states are a main feature of my work. Ever changing and with a myriad of moods and colours, the fickle and the constant provided by them is soothing, inspiring and exciting. I am an inveterate cloud and wave-watcher!
It's not always about the natural world though. The photo above is of an abandoned truck in Kefalonia. In 1953, a devastating earthquake shook the island and only a couple of years later the island was all but abandoned. In 2013, to commemorate the 50th anniversary, I was selected to take part in the year long festival, "The Stone Kingdom" in Kefalonia. I spent 2 weeks travelling the island and taking a large quantity of photographs, not just of my normal nature subject material but also of the various ruins still dotted around the island from this period. I found this old 1940's Dodge truck, which I imagined to have been abandoned after suffering damage to the roof from the quake.
The digital photograph EXIF information, comprising date and time data, GPS coordinates and the colour palette are fed into my software to create the base fractal. From here my artistic interpretation takes over. Using memory of place and ethereal data, I manipulate the fractal until I feel a reconnection of memory, photograph and emotion in the image.
What evolves is a fusion of two distinctly differing fields; the absolute rules of the fractal algorithm and the imagination of the artist acting on sensory and actual recollection. Sometimes, a pattern will emerge within the fractal which has a startling relevance to the theme I wanted to convey. It's rather like watching clouds; the longer you look, the more you see.
Many of my works not only carry a title but also the GPS coordinates relating to the piece. The piece below is entitled "Abandoned Truck - Metaxata; Lat. 38° 07' 30" N, Long. 20° 32' 37" E."
Occasionally, I will be transforming a fractal image and suddenly I will see something else in the image totally unconnected with the original photograph or place but it'll remind me of something or somewhere. In true Zen tradition, I will follow this to an end point, as this is where I was meant to be.
The example here is a piece I created and used for the poster for my "Io" exhibition, commemorating the devastating earthquake on the island of Kefalonia in 1953. I felt that this Zen peice, entitled "Earth Sounds", summed up the sights and sounds, and emotional response to an earthquake.Creating the Work
Zen Manipulation
Lat. 38°15' 54" N; Long. 20° 55' 14" E
