The following link re-directs to my Flickr account, documenting the official photography done for Dance4 as part of the Nottingham Contemporary performance entitled ‘Giving The Eye’: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesfickling/5562539…
I also created an 8min video as part of the performance, in collaboration with artist Lucy Cheung (documentation of that to follow)
I am interested in the relationship between person and place, and philosophical ideas of how the presence of an individual within a place alters that place (or at the very least the conception of that place).
I have always been fascinated by how people think, and the processes of memory and how fragile, incomplete, inconsistent and sometimes incomprehendable it can be.
In my practice I continuously draw upon memories of my heritage, how I identity myself through the place I grew up and how that has shaped me.
Currently, i’m experimenting with instilling narratives and mysticism in landscape photography.
As an artist, you need to constantly be wary of the effects that side projects can have to your, shall we say, “main practice”.
Over the summer I began to do something i’ve always wanted to do – fashion & editorial photography. I worked with numerous models, make-up artists and stylists, worked both on location and in the studio, exploring different themes and from time to time getting myself published in online zines and fashion blogs.
However, now more than ever I am realising the impact that doing this type of photography has had to my practice. I am finding myself using compositional techniques, lighting set-ups etc that are typically used in photography for advertising. This has now resulted in the work i’ve been creating having a very commercial and fashion-heavy bias, which is inapprioriate to what i’m wanting to achieve.
However i’m currently collaborating with a group of performance artists called Dance4 to create an exhibition at the Nottingham Contemporary, which has really allowed me to be self-reflective and get ‘back to my roots’, so to speak.
Both the Dance4 collaboration and my latest body of work will be published on here at a later date. However, should you wish to find out more about either, here are the links:
http://www.nottinghamcontemporary.org/event/giving…
James Fickling is an artist
