Rear window

by Ori Gersht

I guess this isn't really a landscape image, a skyscape maybe. Over 2 years Gersht Made images from the rear window of his London home, the resulting colours are the result of light pollution on cloudy skies. Gersht has this to say about his work...

‘The series calls into question our familiarity with our own natural habitat, pointing out the gulf between the sky that we believe we know, and that of the photographs: a gap between the mechanical, attentive and unassumptive vision of the camera, and the presumptive and subjective vision of the human eye.” Ori Gersht

What i found most interesting about his work was his use of scale and composition. The first time i saw this series was at the Twilight exhibition at the V&A some a few years ago. Looking at the images i enjoyed the rich colors and was reminded somewhat of Rothko but felt that the scale was somewhat lacking. it was then that i noticed the rows of buildings lining the bottom of the frame and suddenly the image felt huge.

That something so small could cause such a dramatic effect on something so vast as the sky was the prominent thought left in my head after viewing the series. It also seemed to me that Gersht had expressed what so many green photographers have been trying to in a subtler but more effective way, whether it was his intention or not.

Although I rarely state it explicitly (thought it is much more obvious in my writing) i am interested by environmental issues and this undoubtedly shapes my work. There are several reasons i don't often discuss the subject; firstly, it is everywhere, and i feel people and i include myself in this,are bored of it. we know what the issues are and don't need telling again. Secondly, i feel the arguments are self evident and i have little original to offer. Thirdly, despite enjoying a bit of "the great outdoors" i also really enjoy living in a city, the variety of things on offer, the convenience of being able to cycle anywhere i might need to, even the crowdedness feels like possibilities.

This i guess is why much of my work focus's on uses of space, for this project i am particularly interested in the gap between city and rural. all the spaces i chose to photograph from while on my searches are landscapes in them selves; representations of nature incorporated into the city. It is an interesting coincidence that Sheffield has more trees per person than any city in Europe. Although Sheffield is far from the Rural idyll, it is probably as good a subject as possible to project my idea of Arcadia onto.