Monday 3 May 2010

A house in progress + Jem Southam

Above: there's still alot left to do on this house which I began painting on wood this afternoon. An opportunity to show the photo that inspired it, below and a few more by the British landscape photographer Jem Southam.
Above: Nineteenth Century Miner's Cottage, Brea.

Above: Pengegon Flower Show.

Above: Bolenowe. All from Jem Southam, Landscape Stories, Princeton, 2005. A serendipitous encounter at the Readings bargain table. Southam's work captures the melancholy beauty of the English winter. And the colours in his photographs have to be seen to be believed: if the book is this good then his prints must be breathtaking. They take me back to the winters I spent on the island of my ancestors, when memories of hedonistic childhood summers were flipped cruelly on their underside: dark, bleak cold and a constant reminder between the white washed walls and rosaries of my Catholic grandmother's house of the imminence of our decay. A perfect source of teenage despair.

2 comments:

Elaine Prunty said...

the landscapes you;ve pictured are really irish too....i'm really surprised to here of croatia being described as dark bleak and cold , but catholism seems to do that to a country...

i was in pula once many many years ago...it was summer and it was far from dark blead and cold ...i enjoyed manys the 'mishmash' ......

Sandra Eterovic said...

Hello Elaine!
Yes, I would imagine that Southam's work would recall Ireland as well.
Pula is a gorgeous part of Croatia. I don't know exactly what a mishmash is, but I'll bet it was good....!