Abstract

Eastwood was invited by the gallery to exhibit a new collection of experimental instant Polaroid images and text. The images recorded the landscape and the city. The locations suggested atmosphere, or energy. There is a unifying sense of time passing while the landscape remains constant. The energy of the city has been explored via abstraction. The footsteps on the pavement a distant echo of the waves breaking on the shore, the sun setting, the moon rising, or the wind blowing through the trees. The text is fragmentary, written using freeform word association techniques. Images and words have been combined to present ‘double-takes’ of atmospheric locations that resonate their significance through selection and presentation. Intentionally, it remains unclear as to whether the text is a personal diary entry, or an imagined invented storyline. The text suggests both introspection and extrospection. It may be fact or fiction, or a combination of both. The short text based elements encourage the audience to engage closely with the process of mediation. Instinctively ‘reading’ image and text ‘combinations’ requires the audience to draw upon their own personal lived experience. Consideration has been given to the possibility of how a collective understanding of everyday situations and events can potentially be amplified in significance. The rural locations included; Lincolnshire Wolds, Humber Estuary, Gibraltar Point, Yorkshire Dales, Normandy, in Northern France. The cityscapes are of New York City and Philadelphia, USA. The exhibition was curated by Noel Black (sculptor).