Venice: The Intimacy of Night.

The photographs are part of an ongoing exploration of the strange city of water that is Venice.

On a previous post (February 2011) I have shown sketchbook pages of my time in Venice. Drawings that depict architectural elements combined with graphical symbols & typography from my experience of the city. Rather than depicting single scenes, the drawings evoke rhythms to capture the flow of Venice, combining both real & photographic reference.

The tension between pictorial figuration & a flattened graphic perspective interests me much, helping to formulate a personal viewpoint & sense of place.

In conjunction with the drawings I am filming the city at night. I have a deep curiosity of the audio intimacy of Venice during night time & I'm gradually developing this into a short film piece. There is also recognition of how the image of Venice as reflection is a metaphor for this strange fairy tale like city, a stage for the tourist's gaze, an heightened sense of it's image. How the very architecture, the fine facades are but decoration for visual consumption. A work in progress at present, but I find the journey of such explorations useful in understanding my own creative practice & what the work is about.


also see:
http://reportager.uwe.ac.uk/projects12/mills/venice.htm