Original photographs by the artist of the Alboran Sea off the southern coast of Spain taken over a two year period. The final portfolio contains images manipulated using an iPad, Adobe Fresco, an iPencil and final rendering through On1 and Adobe Photoshop in 2022. The series utilises the concept of wabi-sabi - the acceptance of transience and imperfection - executed with a painterley approach to seascape art. This wabi-sabi aesthetic is married with other such diverse influences as Turner's seascapes and Ralph Steadman's 'Paranoids' series. The iPad, iPencil and Adobe Fresco software allow that hands-on interface akin to drawing or painting, but in this case, the manipulation of pixels produces unique elements or artefacts that cannot be replicated in any other medium - in a way the 'glitch' is the 21C wabi-sabi of Japanese aesthetics.
The process itself allows for experimentation that can be erased in an instant, or developed further until a conclusion reached. Photography? Yes. Painting? Yes. Yet unlike making a mark or searing paper with light, digital manipulation creates a more ephemeral feeling - layers become transient, ideas fleeting, mistakes are imbued with meaning. By scraping the pixels of the original seascape I am constantly questioning what it is I’m aware of. The colours, the textures become passive as I draw out elements that take on a life of their own. No longer seascapes, are they portraits of entities or 'nensha', conjured by thoughtography? The painter utilises an expressionistic sixth sense to bring forth that which is not seen.
Early morning winter off the coast of Manilva, Spain.
Sun rises through the dark clouds of the west.
View east from Torre La Sal towards Estepona.
Off Playa Ancha, Casares Costa.
Strong easterly wind making waves.
Dramatic sunrise east over Estepona, Spain.
Dusk, looking west past San Luis de Sabinillas towards Africa.
Waves throwing shapes onto Ancha
Storm brewing in east
Early morning crashing waves
The original seascape photographs were taken during walks along the coastline of the Alboran Sea, Western Mediterranean, where I live and work. The coast, particularly the sea, plays a huge part in my work. For most of the year a cloudless sky provides little drama. For these seascapes, the desire to record these images was driven by the dramatic skies offered by winter/spring across the Alboran Sea – storm clouds forming near the Straits of Gibraltar.
The photograph captures the moment of a crashing wave, or a shard of sunlight piercing a heavy cloud. My intention is not to destroy these moments. I am enhancing elements that show my appreciation of a beauty that is imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete in nature. Sometimes they can also be humorous. For example, a close friend thinks image 5, 'Strong easterly wind making waves', is an image of a killer bunny wielding a knife - which, of course, it is.