URBAN AND RURAL LANDSCAPES – GALLERY 1
Click for full size

GROUND STUDIES

The ground we walk on is a patchwork quilt of tactility and texture that we are permanently in contact with but rarely see. Because our consciousness functions above the ground we are almost indifferent to the world beneath it. We are not required to visually explore the contrasting properties of concrete, cast iron, wood or a bed of leaves whenever we walk from A to B. It is not necessary for us to aesthetically evaluate the formal elements of line, colour and shape inherent in these materials as we step over them or scan the ground the way we might inspect the surface of a painting. Instead, we employ common sense and pay just enough visual attention to prevent us from tripping over or getting our feet wet. And yet, if we care to look down, anything more than a cursory glance will reveal an abstract landscape of such complexity that its component parts would be too vast to comprehend and its materials too numerous to identify; an organic and man-made labyrinth of inter-woven form and texture that make up the surface of our planet.

Gravity physically roots us to these materials like a magnet but because our visual scope exists mainly at eye level, we are largely oblivious to this parallel universe which is right under our feet.

Mike Coleman