I wrote this statement in 2003 and although it is by now old, I still like its high spirits, so have decided to leave it here for now

The Order of Something

It was during my time at Art School that photography found me.. Until that time I was experimenting with other media, such as painting, drawing, writing sculpture, installation and performance. From the age of 16 onwards, I had always used cameras - video, Super-8, 35mm - but it was as if I had not noticed.

During the second year of my BA I presented a set of slides I had taken (of large sign-paintings I had made) in small slide-viewers on a shelf. I leant the paintings against the walls near the shelf, but I realised that it was the possibilities of scale and representation of the object which interested me more than the objects (the paintings) themselves. Somehow the objects themselves were too real and not real enough.

It was about this time that I began to collect plants and books and also to pickle onions. An unfortunate incident late one night some time later resulted in the abandoning of the pickling experiments, but the keeping of plants and the collecting of books, as well as other things, have continued unabated, to the point at which I now consider both to reflect extremely accurate ongoing autobiographies.

Due to both shyness and fear of the half-light of the darkroom (in contrast to the no-light of the colour lab), I learnt colour printing before black and white, which was effectively self-taught. The boredom and limitations of the colour-printing process led me to the point at which I was only printing in black & white. At this point I am relatively unafraid of the Dark Room.

As an artist who works with photography, I have found that amateurism and an unscientific approach have distinguished my practise from that of others I have had the joy and disappointment of meeting along the way; a technical photography background would be something I would whole-heartedly discourage anyone who wishes to work outside the commercial sphere from getting.

From the age of 16-26 I managed, quite despite my own best efforts, to get myself into quite a lot of trouble in one way or another and it from these experiences that I eventually washed up in love, on firmer ground and finally deciding on spending the winter months in Athens, in this place at a time of accelerated ancient and modern ruin and modernisation.

The aim, if there is one at all, perhaps better put as a purposeful aimlessness, takes the form of an ongoing and experimental archive of encounters in the guise of photographs of objects, organised out of personal experiences and the pathos and delight of a life. Understood in some way as a belief in the ordinariness of a life well-lived at the level of the everyday, thus it is that from time to time something may erupt through the surface of the day and reveal, in its mute manner, the real which is both more and less real than previously anticipated. It is definitely about the surface; the surface of things, the surface of the photographic, a piece of paper, an abandoned box or the appearance of something, The surface of the thing reveals only that which is concealed by the depths one seeks in the dark mysterious nature of things.

‘At night I would run through the streets and howl, during the day I would work calmly’
(Maurice Blanchot, The Madness of the Day)

It is sad, yes, but it is ok. Full to busting with joy and shining eyes and people and places and things who come and go, who love and are loved in differing measure, and dreams which nevertheless remain strong despite ones best efforts to sabotage the project.

I discovered recently what a ‘tear sheet’ is. It’s a press term, referring to an individual’s published material. You tear your sheet from the publication and over time build a book which is a collection of the writing one has had published. This book is the fantasy of its one day being a published book in its own right. It is a personal collection, but one which is easily organised, by date, I would guess, or topic, or by date within topic, or vice versa. I have my own but which is made up only of tear sheets from newspapers; cuttings and obituaries which grab me in some personal way, often containing dreams or traits I hope to achieve or develop for myself.

The objects are selected similarly although tend to prove much more complicated to arrange archivally. Or perhaps it is more that I allow them to remain difficult. All things have different significances at different times, in different places. Let me give you an example. Perhaps right now, although by no means ordinarily a cyclist, a push-bike is sought for one of two - I will not say which - not entirely unrelated reasons; As a means of exit or pursuit. Once that thought has been had, it is quite likely that, with a little foot-work, one will certainly make a disappearance before the night is out.

The artist exits through a narrow trap-door in the floor of the gallery.