Glimpses

I do not draw portraits or take photographs of people. I feel uneasy about it.

As I wander, I see the ‘everyday’ in the environment and enjoy how such glimpses provide an ambiguous commentary of life. In this way, my work is essentially about people as reflected in place, time, and context.

When I was an Art Foundation student, my photography tutor told me my work was about ‘metanymics’. That sounded good to me, and I told people who asked that my work was about metanymics! More recently, I have searched for an explanation of metanymics, and I conclude there is no such thing. Instead, I have learnt that I am, in fact, a psychogeographer. Like my themes, I’m not sure it helps - that is just who I am, and my work is just ‘my work’, and that is how it will continue. Art comes from somewhere inside you, being a negotiation one has with the world you experience.

So, as a psychogeographer, I wander, and things catch my attention. It’s not special - I can only think it is what we all do. As I wander, I drift in and out of a type of consciousness. This, according to the Situationist International, is known as the ‘dérive’. There is no specific destination or plan, only an expectation of unexpected encounters and a heightened awareness of one’s surroundings.