South Downs

The South Downs has played a role as a backdrop for my photographs in the past; seeping a romance of the past and a beautiful context for gothic-esque scenes to be played out in. I recently took photographs of us assisting sheep herding at dusk on the hills of the south downs, after determinedly herding the sheep into the adjacent field after the hundredth try, there was one lonesome sheep which had taken itself away from the herd due to illness and we sought it out in the darkness. The images that i took extracted completely from context take on an ambiguous atmosphere and remind me of the work of the American modern realist in the 1930s Andrew Wyeth. He focused on creating rural scenes of the land and people around him. 

This iconic painting of Wyeth's titled 'Christina s world' is the tragic depiction of Christina a local girl who was crippled with polio and was unable to walk. Most of his paintings share this atmosphere of sombre calm, depicted through rural and ambiguous scenes. The way Wyeth has depicted the girl within the mass of space or wilderness creates a sense of lonliness and desperation, and the hidden identity of the girl facing away forces the viewer to ask questions, adding a surrealism to the image.