Winterscapes
Winterscapes
Photographs by Paul Anthony Melhado
2006-2007
The construction of an image as a head on collision often requires the transfer of the artist sensation from the moment, to that of the experience of the viewer. This body of work is simply an attempt to communicate such a sensation, the sensations of being. Winterscape is a collision between mortality and the psyche. Fear, loss, grief, isolation and death, the difficulties of being reflected onto a landscape that personifies ones own existence. In short, these are the physical representations of life’s ultimate concerns, projected onto the natural world.
These photographs represent a departure from my previous approach to landscape imagery. In the past I have (like most landscape photographs) presented the landscape as a physical space documenting the many ways in which our activities leaves an imprint, a dominant theme in photography since the 1970s. In this new series of images however I present the landscape as a metaphysical place. Winter is more to me than just a season of the year, it is an existential construct. In winter we learn to cope with many of life’s concerns. The evidences of life and death, our isolation and the gloom of winter, makes it impossible to turn our attention from the fragility of being. In winter everything in the landscape appears to be a state of suspended animation neither dead nor alive, it like us, teeters between states of being and nothingness.
Photography tends to show much more than it can explain and these images I hope show more than just the cold harshness of winter. They point to a clinging to life, the hope of renewal and the passing of time that stretches between the uneventful and the catastrophic. Technically these images also represent a departure from the pristine gelatin silver prints that have been the hallmark of my work for the last fifteen years. These images vacillate between the erratic, unpredictable tendencies inherent in 19th century photography and the controlled precision that the digital era facilitates.
In these panoptical views the subject is often placed at a distance from the viewer, in a state of decay, the details concealed in places to allow the imagination to take flight. The extreme wide angle of the lens I use also facilitates multiple levels of engagement between the audience and the work. Looking simultaneously from inside and outside the space, you are a spectator and participant. This in many ways is a metaphor for life approaching middle age. Life viewed from an uncomfortable distance, within view, surrounding you, overwhelming you, leaving you.
Photographs by Paul Anthony Melhado
2006-2007
The construction of an image as a head on collision often requires the transfer of the artist sensation from the moment, to that of the experience of the viewer. This body of work is simply an attempt to communicate such a sensation, the sensations of being. Winterscape is a collision between mortality and the psyche. Fear, loss, grief, isolation and death, the difficulties of being reflected onto a landscape that personifies ones own existence. In short, these are the physical representations of life’s ultimate concerns, projected onto the natural world.
These photographs represent a departure from my previous approach to landscape imagery. In the past I have (like most landscape photographs) presented the landscape as a physical space documenting the many ways in which our activities leaves an imprint, a dominant theme in photography since the 1970s. In this new series of images however I present the landscape as a metaphysical place. Winter is more to me than just a season of the year, it is an existential construct. In winter we learn to cope with many of life’s concerns. The evidences of life and death, our isolation and the gloom of winter, makes it impossible to turn our attention from the fragility of being. In winter everything in the landscape appears to be a state of suspended animation neither dead nor alive, it like us, teeters between states of being and nothingness.
Photography tends to show much more than it can explain and these images I hope show more than just the cold harshness of winter. They point to a clinging to life, the hope of renewal and the passing of time that stretches between the uneventful and the catastrophic. Technically these images also represent a departure from the pristine gelatin silver prints that have been the hallmark of my work for the last fifteen years. These images vacillate between the erratic, unpredictable tendencies inherent in 19th century photography and the controlled precision that the digital era facilitates.
In these panoptical views the subject is often placed at a distance from the viewer, in a state of decay, the details concealed in places to allow the imagination to take flight. The extreme wide angle of the lens I use also facilitates multiple levels of engagement between the audience and the work. Looking simultaneously from inside and outside the space, you are a spectator and participant. This in many ways is a metaphor for life approaching middle age. Life viewed from an uncomfortable distance, within view, surrounding you, overwhelming you, leaving you.