Gilbert Townshend
(b. 1988, London, UK)
Contact
Studies
About
I am a photographer from London with a background in graphic design and fine art image making.
I’m interested in photo-chemical processes and the creation of photographic tools alongside image making. I’m just as comfortable working with modern technology as I am hundred year old plate cameras and have spent time working with alt-process image making in a fine art context.
Where possible I like to be practical and learn new skills, be they in music, electronics, fabrication or programming. I enjoy taking apart machinery to see how it works, trying to solve problems without resorting to established and ready-made solutions.
My artistic background has involved life drawing, print making and video work. I have also worked in moving image doing assisting on TV shoots, as well as data backup and on-set playback.
My commercial work has involved programming, engineering and repairs of cameras and lights.
Statement
My aim is to use photography in a way that the human eye would not see in day-to-day life except in images made specifically for it with effects such as motion blur, depth of field and controlled exposure to achieve specific effects.
I strive to find a personal honesty within an image, something that on reflection says more than on first viewing. Finding in stillness the opposite of speed, of the ephemeral. The outside world always intrudes but, like a film, the work can for a few moments be its own self-contained world.
My work is also interested in the tactile qualities of a medium that usually is purely visual, I make images to have a physical presence in the world and that are not just endlessly reproducable on screens. To that end Polaroids and other instant film formats are something that I use frequently to both document and create work with.
Process
It’s often hard to put a finger on what exactly makes me want to do a specific project. Sometimes it has been a desire to try out a new technique, a new piece of equipment, with others it has been to a brief or with a particular model in mind.
I thrive when I set myself or am given limitations, working creatively within those restraints leads to more exciting outcomes.
Though it’s really more about the image than the technique, part of the enjoyment I get out of analogue image making is the physical nature of working with film, chemicals and paper. The tactile quality of handling things and my choices of equipment end up allowing more space for thinking about the what, not the how.
For six years I took a photograph of myself every day, despite not enjoying having images taken of myself and with no intention of showing them. It was called Amateur Narcissism.
Some of my as yet not fully realised experiments have involved my interest in origami and photography. By folding light sensitive paper and projecting images onto it I aimed to create three dimensional prints. My desire was to escape the idea that an image has to be a flat and effectively dimensionless object, making use of the pictures inherent position in space.
My practice is in a state of development, which is why I wanted the time to experiment on an MA course.. The majority of what I do has been self-taught, the more I do the more I learn about what fits my working patterns. I really thrive when there are people I can ask questions of and learn from, much of the improvement and change has come when I have found likeminded people to work alongside.
Influences
As is often the best way, the people who have most influenced me are from disparate artistic backgrounds. I try to keep and open mind where possible and to seek out as many different influences as possible.
My work is influenced by, though rarely resembles, the work of post-1940s Japanese photographers such as Ishiuchi Miyako, Masao Yamamoto and Araki Nobuyoshi, as well as 17th century Dutch painting.
I very much admire the work of Bridget Riley, Giovanni Battista Piranesi and M.C. Escher for their mathematical elegance in design and the artworks they produce(d).
Surrealism in Georgio de Chirico, Max Ernst and René Magritte. Appreciating the weird, the humour in art as well as just how much personal perception shapes artistic expression.
Dan Flavin, James Turrell and Fischli & Weiss amazed for their installations based on light alone and how much a space can be shaped by changing what you get to see of it.
Issey Miyake, Aitor Throup, Gareth Pugh and Lee (Alexander) McQueen opened my eyes to just how experimental and wonderful fashion can be, despite the haze and weirdness that surrounds it all.