A World Without Colour..
I remember when I submitted my undergad dissertation and there were a few funny looks, as it wasn’t what my peers or my lecturers expected. I had done an enormous amount of work on education; social class, disparities, divisions, writing papers for international conferences, campaigning for equal rights within all areas of education and comparing the results of the Netherlands, Swedish and Australian system, to name just a few.
So perhaps it came as a bit of a surprise, when I submitted my dissertation on child trafficking and sexual exploitation..well, actually no. This was precisely what I intended. I had been in the midst of it myself as a teenager, while it was all happening around me and later, with the scandal of Rochdale and many more. What did my research discover? That a lack of education in migrants, was central to the atrocities in the North of England. Learning the language of a new country is one thing, but understanding the cultural differences, the overall values and beliefs is altogether different.
Since my paper was published, the government have introduced a new way of educating inidivduals from overseas and helping them integrate well into society. My paper may not have had anything to do with the overall policy change, but it certainly helped me understand the importance of research in being a mechanism for key social and political change.
Looking over my research from the last 12 months, the main things that stand out are my curiosity for raw materials, for the monochrome, the bare bones of materials. Having recently read Patrick Grant’s Less, this further cemented my yearning to make a difference, by going back to basics in a sense. From a visual art point of view, my eye is often drawn to black & white. I shoot in B&W, I began my journey into portrait realism in B&W, I love the rich, deep tones of charcoal, along with it’s raw, natural aesthetic. Some of the most striking imagery I have ever seen has been purely B&W. Perhaps by avoiding colour, we accentuate a deeper level of substance, that speaks far more nuanced and cuts deeper than anything else.
Model - Jenny Shimizu for Banana Republic in the 1990s.
When Jenny Shimizu appeared on a billboard in Times Square in the 90s for Banana Republic, alongside the words American Beauty, it was not only a bold fashion statement, but a pivitol moment in equality. It was profound.
In Roland Barthes essay Camera Lucida, published in 1980, he states that for a photograph to be powerful it must have what he called punctum, which he defined as the sensory, intensely subjective effect of a photograph on the viewer: “The punctum of a photograph is that accident which pricks me (but also bruises me, is poignant to me).”
I started looking at other images in B&W and their profound sense of punctum; of their power and persuasion over anything of colour. The first part of my Hear Me RAW! exhibition focused on the form and character of the raw materials within our everyday urban areas. I felt something intense when I came across the demolition site in Warrington - looking into half demolished rooms, like something from the Blitz. The very idea that the structure would no longer be there within a few short weeks, all of the history and life removed, deleted from the landscape, affected me emotionally and drew me to capture the image in that moment.
The David M. Solinger Collection. Franz Kline. Sotherby's.
Since then, I have looked differently at other examples of B&W art, particularly drawn to the work of Franz Kline and of course, Picasso’s Guernica - both very different, but equally powerful. And this is where my journey takes me. I find myself longing to find out more about these pieces.
What was the intention? Was there an intention? How are they percieved by the viewer? How does the work portray a sense of power and/or persuasion?
Picasso. Guernica 1937
