Artist Statement
These digital photo composites are a collaboration of impressions and objects that have been inscribed on the landscape by the surrounding human inhabitants. They characterise the land, based on the humans branding of the landscape, creating the result of an implied culture through signs.
It is these purposely-impressed markings, created by an individual or a group of individuals collectively, that make a culture unique from any other. Yet at the same time, no two are the same representing a play between collectivism and individualism in a culture.
I adapted this style because of my desire to visually study other cultures branding on their landscape in comparison to my own. It is this desire to explore the finer details of a landscape that excites me visually, and which is heightened during travelling, when displaced from my familiar environmental elements. It is a curiosity common to all who wish to travel, to look, to see, to acknowledge, to move on.
I photograph and display my photographs in such a way to encourage viewers to look closely and study the elements, they are cultures marking which are pinned up and display like insects in a science lab. They are to be preserved, studied and experianced.
It took 2 years in India to compose the final structure of my first exhibition series. India was a cultural shock and an experience that I was fascinated by and eager to adapt to. The first exhibition series on India has developed with my journey of adjustment to life in India and is a representation of my experience of settlement mentally within India: becoming familiar with the surroundings.
I am currently working on 7 series of composites in this style on India, Switzerland, Australia, London, St Petersburg, Helsinki, Portugal, Hong Kong, America, Austria as well as partly Macau. I intend to continue creating series of images on other countries in the following years.