Whilst back home spending reading week cracking on with the dissertation, I had the pleasure of taking in an artists talk at MIMA with renowned photographer Ian McDonald.
I have known Ian for many years, he being an Art teacher at my secondary school.
His work is renowned for it's harsh yet beautiful, monochrome portrayal of the North of England, in particular the rough industrial plant's of the Teesside area, which I live close to.
Relevant to my dissertation in the fact that he is a Northern artist with success both in his homeland and in 'The City', Ian's talk which incorporated a documentary made on his work by his son Jamie, was particularly enlightening for both my academic work and my practice itself.
I love the way that Ian manages to inject beaut into the most depressing and dark of landscapes.
as an interdisciplinary artist, I often like to take in talks by artist's of various backgrounds, but feel that this talk has been made even more relevant by my recent work and inclination to use photography not neccesarily as a photographer would, but as a tool to capture my thought processes and concepts both as they develop and as a way of creating what I feel will be my finished work.
This image is a perfect example of what I initially strived to create within my work, and essentially what white cube galleries create - 'solitude'.Which is even more remarkable when you take into account the landscape it was taken in.
In his talk after the showing of his documentary, Ian talked about how he is influenced by Renaissance painters within his work. Noting that several painters use photographry as a basis for their work, Ian curiously employs the reverse in his practice, making drawings of images he intends to photograph, before loading up his box brownie, as a way of planning and ensuring the precision and success of the subsequent image.
McDonald achieves something which has been a constant intention of mine throughout this piece, forcing the focus onto uncompromising landscapes,in my work this was achieved through the use of a 'prop' in Ian's case employing his skill as a photographer and also in Ian's work gifting beauty to them.
