exhibition title

Fossils

´Fossils´, which began in 2005, is an ongoing series of items photographed caught in street and road asphalt. These items appear embedded in the surface of the ground and it is their ‘trapped’ nature that draws me to them. Their similarity to archaeological remains, those of dinosaurs, fish and plants, petrified in rock, is immediately obvious. While these are not fossils in the archaic sense, they have the potential to become the detritus of our future records; they are the bits we leave behind.

In photographing these items, I have deliberately reduced their colour to black and white and given no sense of scale, resulting in their seeming familiarity without being immediately obvious. The abstract composition of the image and, on occasion, the photographing of the object’s negative space, encourage the viewer to look further.

In some, the negative space is made as interesting as the focal point the item creates. These backgrounds, if you like, show ‘the unseen things,’ the items that are part of our quotidian existence. It is my hope that the viewer’s unconscious familiarity with these spaces triggers a connection, which is devoid of prior or necessary knowledge.

These photographs are the many stops we fail to notice everyday. At times, the items in these photographs presented to the viewer are a surprise, as we do not expect to see such things embedded in our roads. By capturing them in this unfamiliar and non-native environment, the viewer is forced to question how they got there, rather than what they actually are.

This series is far from over; in fact it is really only beginning. New items appear at my feet everyday and I am as surprised by them now as I was by the first one in 2005. I wish viewers of these photographs to share this feeling of surprise.

selected work

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