Urban Silence

The empty urban spaces, silent theatres, the distance between people, the evidence of technology supressing us into our own private realms and the feeling of being contained in a contemporary global economic world are the concepts behind my most recent work. The constantly changing urban and natural landscape, overlapping and entwining, continue to be sources of inspiration.

This mixed media painting "Urban Silence" is part of a series which I have spent many years developing. I continue to explore two contrasting themes of "Urban Silence" and "Urban Life" demonstrating my interest in street photography, sociology and urban architecture. I use my camera as a visual diary to capture and document contemporary life and the world around me. At times I feel completley invisible behind the camera.

“Urban Life” created in 2009, uncannily predicts and evokes the same sentiments and observations felt before and during the recent lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic. Inspired by the writings of Albert Camus, I wandered around the urban environments imagining how these over populated spaces could appear, without a trace of humanity in an ever growing contemporary world. In stark contrast to my Urban Life Series, where I photographed people walking into the shots like actors on a large stage.

Urban Silence in contrast reflects on the theatres of Silence, the gaps between the musical notes. The geometry is simplified and abstracted, overlapping layers of time, the play of absence and presence of the mixed media, "like music that has lost its sound element"(Salvatore Sciarrino).

The photographic images are then selected carefully and at times manipulated and mirror imaged to create a sense of disorientation. They are then applied to a range of worked surfaces from large scale oxidized metals to wooden supports, canvas or paper.

“Hostile to the past, impatient of the present, and cheated of the future, we were much like those whom men's justice, or hatred, forces to live behind prison bars.” Albert Camus The Plague.

“Until now I always felt a stranger in this town, and that I'd no concern with you people. But now that I've seen what I have seen, I know that I belong here whether I want it or not. This business is everybody's business” Albert Camus The Plague.