Repeating themes and iconography

Being an artist that works predominantly in photographic mediums means that I can sometimes find myself being repetitive, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

I revisit certain muses from time to time, and these apartments are a daily fixture in the majority of viewpoints that make up my day to day.

I use them to navigate the city. I can point them out from the aeroplane when coming home. On a clear day these sentinels can be seen from nearly every high point in the city.

I didn’t used to think that I liked this type of architecture, but it has a strange beauty. And, a life of it’s own. When dusk comes in, one by one the different lights come on. A warm tungsten glow shining out into the cold of the northern nights. Comforting stalwart watch guard’s protecting the mouth of the river.

Obviously, I’m aware that they’re not living beings in their own right, but the rhythm of the lives going on inside them lends the building’s personality.

I look at these building’s and consider how I would change them into vertical farms, or use solar paint on the outside to harvest energy for the communities living inside them. Vertical space in our Cities is drastically under used.

There’s a power and food crisis in the UK, that will worsen with the onset of Brexit. I’ve often thought Maggie missed a trick when she closed the mines, and left a gaping hole in our economy. If we had started investing in green enterprise’s and technologies back in the 80s we’d be top of the game by now.

In the near future we’re all going to have to do our fair share to reduce poverty and pollution. Clever adaptations of what we already have could lead to self sufficiency and independence from the strangle hold of energy giants.

Just a ponder…