The beauty of a landscape isn’t so important to me. My Sea Level photographs are consistent with much of my other work in that they show a landscape that has been compromised – either by environmental factors or by a connection to a past narrative, or disrupted by surface interventions and flaws. The landscapes in my photographs are not casual locations but specific sites that I return to again and again, places I obsess over.
My Sea Level photographs focus on the seafront of the small south coast town where I lived as a teenager. It’s a place that I still visit frequently and spending time there brings back memories. When we moved down from London it was a new beginning – strange and unsettling.
The beach shelters stretch from the west side of town to the east of the pier. The shelters are dusty, dirty and the weathered glass is marked with graffiti producing images that are often quite abstract. The sea and the markings on the glass have equal importance in the finished photograph. The dust and neglect becomes part of the image reinforcing that sense of melancholy which runs through many seaside towns.
