White explores the observation of light and the colour white. It addresses ways of seeing and is influenced by the practice of the nineteenth-century painter Whistler. The work aims to reveal connections between the observation of the effects of light and the way an image of a place can be conveyed. The work explores not the representation of a place, but rather an experience and emotional response to the act of seeing.
The body of work explores narrative, building a sustained sense of the place from a series of abstract white representations that aims to convey a set of ideas about the relationship between modernist architecture and place. The work extends Whistler’s exploration of the colour white, linking the artist’s work and methods of presentation, the white cube gallery space and modernist architecture. The colour white is used to bind these apparently unconnected ideas together.
White strips away all embellishment and detail, defining simple abstract forms, creating imagined and real spaces. Through the photographic medium it highlights the disparity between what the observer and the camera can see, making the photographic painterly.
The work is situated at Homewood house, one of the earliest examples of modernist architecture in Britain, designed by Patrick Gwynne in 1938. The project explores the house and gardens, building a sustained sense of the place out of a series of abstract representations.