I’M ONLY HUMAN
I am an artist who suffers from crippling social anxiety, and because of this I have had moments in my life when I have to deal with deep depression due to my isolation. This is something I could only admit to recently and I am currently going through grief counselling as a starting point because there are many associations with depression that are complex and we are all unique in the way we process our life’s experiences.
A near death experience in the R. W. Paul silo building during the final few months of my art training at Ipswich Art School (in the 1990’s) had a huge impact on my physiology and has only grown stronger over the past 20 years, which has come to define my unique outlook upon life and the things I have come to appreciate, little things that mean a lot, the result of this event in my life, is what I look for in nature and how I look at things to contemplate their past.
UNSEENBEAUTY (all one word) is summed up in a single sentence:
“The ability to observe millions of different colours, textures and layers within natural composition found in every day places. Looking at the effects of weather impaction along with human interaction upon the surface of the things we see all around us”.
This is what I do when I look through the lens of my camera, you will see in the book ‘Ipswich Habitat’ that I explore the things I see in abstract macro format, to look at reality with more clarity. I go to all of the usual places that a landscape photographer would, but I try to find something they do not see.
I look at the individual elements within the environment to extract an essence of a landscape that inspires an emotional response in the viewer. Primarily for you the viewer to find comfort in one of the landscapes that I have frozen in time, which is very personal to you for your own reasons (while all six categories are personal to me and my experience), because we all see things differently and have personal memories attached to the same things, but we can feel a universal emotion in the same way and that is what connects us all.
The ‘UNSEENBEAUTY : The Art of Evolution’ series of online books produced for my ‘Supporting Member's’ section on this website explore those places we go to unwind, relax and refresh our souls.
My Landscapes are separated by the objects they capture and all have a scientific connection being the reason they are the chosen locations; to inspire those of us with Mental Health issues, to also follow their own journey along the routes of UNSEENBEAUTY. As a way to rediscover a place or moment in time where You Can Escape from yourself, looking out to the wider world. With that introduction to getting back outside, coming through the Beauty of Nature.
I know we can not go outside right now because of lockdown restrictions, this is why my work is mostly available online (I also have my open-air art gallery ‘USB Gallery Studio’ opened on the outskirts of Ipswich in 2019 with Ian Moss for exhibitions when weather and safety permits) later in the year? In the meantime to cater for those in our society who are unable to leave their homes (for any reason, no age restriction necessary) I hope my future works can bring the positive energy of nature to you through your most trusted technological device.
I promote my online books with a video tease on Instagram to announce new publications (coming out on the issuu.com platform) and to lay a tone of my emotional response to the images with a piece of soothing or energetic soundtrack of my own making - I am also open to collaborate with other artists and tune makers in my pursuit of promotions for charities that gives something back to the community through professional creativity.
(Appeared in: Led Creative’s News Letter / May 2020).