HUMILITAS
Weathered Images
artwork
"One comes to know oneself, imaginatively, as part of nature; and nature is understood to have a dignity quite apart from its susceptibility to human control. It is the experience of human nature in that wider setting that sponsors the growth of conscience; and conscience, in turn, owes a responsibility to nature that is at once vivid and hard to specify.
The sense of human life as a participant in nature also teaches humility in the face of
wilful experiments – whether the experiments are pursued for the sake of social improvements or self-expansion.
David Bromwich, "Natural Piety and Human Responsibility"*
Weathered Images (Imatges a la Intempèrie) - deep time - sedimentation, erosion, third exposure
interrogates the elements of the visual field as it is experienced by the gaze and configured by the photographic image. Positioned at the centre of the Humilitas project, this series considers the possibility of a humble image, an image that invites quiet viewing, seeking to expand our seeing beyond the frame. This is an open image, one where the subject's presence is loosened or softened in a muddying of foregrounds, midgrounds and backgrounds intended to delay the viewer's concrete reading. In a play of focal planes and limit states of visibility, the imaged subjects stand, diffuse or fall away.
Work in progress.
Photographic series here.
Weathered Images - concept text.
Link to/ from research: The Humility of Slate.
Images: Weathered Images #1 and 2 (Slate quarry on the way to Burg and path to Les Bordes, Humilitas series, 2023. C-type hand prints on heavyweight baryta-coated fibre base paper, 26 x 26 cm, mounted onto disused roofing slate sourced in the area. Featuring village carpenter Xavier Rodríguez mounting a print onto locally-sourced slate.
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