I have just returned to my home in Hastings on the East Sussex coast after an epic ‘Grand Tour’ road trip of the UK. It has been an amazing privilege to take 15 days out of my normal routine to traverse the country collating an image library of over 4,500 pictures, clocking up more than 1,500 miles and networking with writers and curators along the way. I feel inspired and engaged by all I have seen and those I have met, as I enter the next phase of my working process: to extract and distill a meaningful narrative for the UK today in my contemporary recreations of specific architectural old master prints and paintings by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Joseph Gandy and Tobias Verhaecht.
For me, embarking on a new body of work takes a huge leap of faith, considerable time (it can take well over a year to create a set of work), and savings in the bank to see me through. It has always been a high-risk strategy, requiring a certain resolve and self-belief. This is the first time I have been supported with funding towards the expensive, but very necessary, initial phase of my making process: collating an image library from which to work.
Photography is the raw material I use to make my complex digitally constructed collages. It is fundamental that I take all these photographs myself, on location; immersed in the landscapes and urban environments I wish to capture and comment upon. Camilla Brown, in her review of my solo exhibition ‘In the Footsteps of a Master’ at Djanogly Art Gallery in Nottingham last year, likened this part of my practice to that of the French Impressionists; both in their insistence of being in the landscape they were depicting, to absorb an impression of a place, and their quick working process. This part of my creativity is indeed intensive and fast, where I snap and move through a location at a rapid pace.
This time the process felt different. With the a-n travel bursary significantly helping towards my travel expenses, it felt like a genuine endorsement of my practice and I embarked on this epic venture with more confidence and less trepidation than usual. It is so important that artists feel valued for their contribution and in this age of funding cuts I am so grateful to a-n for the invaluable boost it has given me.
The catalyst for this project has been my desire to recreate Joseph Gandy’s painting ‘Architectural visions of early fancy in the gay morning of youth and dreams in the evening of life’ (1820), which illustrates the neoclassical architect Sir John Soane’s unrealised projects, set within an Arcadian landscape. The intention behind my recreation is to celebrate Soane’s influence and legacy by photographing examples of architecture around the country inspired by his contribution. This will form a companion piece to my recreation of Gandy’s painting of Soane’s architectural projects that were built, depicted as though models in a room, for a three person exhibition ‘Sense of Soane’ at the National Trust’s Wimpole Hall in 2017/18.
I’ve had a map on my studio wall since Christmas, annotated with all the buildings across the UK I wanted to photograph. Looking at it now I can’t believe I have travelled to them all and have gained so much understanding of their physicality, cultural significance and geographical relationship to one another. I have visited many stately homes built in the classical style, as well as photographing classical buildings in urban surroundings. It’s amazing how many exceptional buildings are hidden in otherwise unremarkable suburbs of large cities. When photographing for new work, I always have to hand copies of the original artworks I wish to recreate, and use them as my map and guide. Alongside Gandy’s Architectural Visions of early Fancy… I carried an image of Piranesi’s fantasy etching of the Appian Way and Tobias Verhaecht’s Tower of Babel.
The journey started at Sheffield Town Hall, where a chance encounter with my friend Martin Clark, Director of Kunstall in Bergen, Norway (he was over to curate Art Sheffield 2016), felt like a good omen for the trip. Each day I had a carefully planned itinerary, stopping off at one, two or three locations along the way, depending on the length of time I anticipated each place would need. Driving on motorways, country roads, through national parks and busy cities, most days would end in a different location, although I did spend two days in Liverpool, Edinburgh and Glasgow for an extended period of exploration.
After passing through Salford to photograph St. Philip’s Church (a neoclassical gem by architect Sir Robert Smirke, who subsequently designed the British Museum), I met up with Natasha Howes, Chief Curator at Manchester Art Gallery, one year on from my solo show there. It was really good to be able to see her again in person and have the time to update her fully with my developments and plans for the coming 18 months. She also told me about a potential commission for another building in Manchester, and I was able to rework my schedule to meet with the curator and chairman there the following morning. This felt brilliant and an opportunity that might never have arisen if I hadn’t been in the city at that time.
It was genuinely exciting to be able to travel quickly around the country in the hunt for the buildings I required (unlike Soane, of course, who had to travel to his projects by horse!). Having spent so much time researching in advance on Street View: where to park, the best locations for photographing etc., it was a real adrenaline rush each time the building I sought came into view. The Penshaw Monument in Northumberland was particularly thrilling, as it could be seen from quite a distance as I approached from the A19.
I posted daily progress updates on Instagram and gradually felt the pieces of the jigsaw joining up. Highlights of the trip were the Devonshire Dome in Buxton which, when constructed in the 1780’s, was the largest unsupported dome in the world; The Rotunda Museum in Scarborough, one of the oldest purpose-built museums still in use in the UK; and the view of the (unfinished) Scottish National Monument and the Observatory on Carlton Hill from the Nelson Monument in Edinburgh.
On the homeward journey I stopped over in Derby to meet with Camilla Brown (curator, writer and lecturer on contemporary art, specialising in photography) over a Sunday evening family meal. We hope to work together on a book project in the coming year and it was fantastic to meet her for the first time and exchange ideas. The following morning I had a meeting with Peter Bonnell, Exhibitions Curator at QUAD Derby, to look around the facilities, and continue a dialogue we started about a possible future collaboration when he visited my solo show at the Djanogly Art Gallery in Nottingham last year.
These days, when everyone is so busy and overwhelmed by paperwork and electronic means of communication, I realise the importance of establishing and nurturing face-to-face connections with peers. I come away from this ‘Grand Tour’ physically exhausted, but creatively invigorated and full of optimism for future possibilities. Through an intensive period of travel I have gathered an image library of amazing places that will fuel my work for the rest of the year. It will take some time to complete them… but when they are finished, I’ll certainly share them on this blog.
www.emilyallchurch.com
