This print is based on a mobile phone photograph taken out of the window of a moving car, near Cape Leveque on the Dampier Peninsula in Western Australia.
The digital manipulation of the image, and the way that image is printed, both refer to the way that my memory works, or rather, doesn’t work. I have a very limited visual memory – I can’t recall images of places I have been to, just fleeting impressions and hints of colour. But oddly, if I study a photograph that I have taken of a place, I can occasionally retain a very slight memory of the photograph. So the pixelation of the image refers to the breakdown of memory, my attempt to grasp an image that keeps slipping through my grasp.
Most of the image is printed in CMYK halftone. This creates a wonderful range of colours, but can change them slightly from the original image, as memories change with the passing of time, or places get mixed up. But 16 of the squares are printed in pure spot colour. These are the hints of colour that are my only real memories.
In Cape Leveque we drove through a very small wild fire smouldering at the side of the road – there were tiny flashes of orange flame, an especially bright green leaf amongst the charred undergrowth, beautiful shades of grey in the smoke. These are the colours I have chosen to pick out in spot colour, to emphasise their impact and try to consolidate their memory.
The print is 37.5 x 57cm, printed in a very short edition of 10 and cost £220. Please click here if you would like to buy one.
