Artwork description / Biography
The series ‘After Horst – Patterns in Brutalism’ takes its influence from Horst’s black and white collages ‘Patterns in Nature’. Horst captured close up images of plants, flowers and shells, when printed parts of the photographs were cut into repeating shapes to make kaleidoscopic and abstract images.
My work ‘Patterns in Brutalism’ takes this concept into the digital age.
Brutalist architecture of the middle 20th century created what became to be known as ‘slums in the sky’ – concrete jungles built as human warrens. In many cities and towns depressing concrete structures swallowed up any glimpse of nature.
I have photographed Brutalist structures and then I create small digital sections of these Images and create repeating patterns, using a computer editing programme. The resulting abstract images resemble Horst’s kaleidoscopic patterns Images and allow us to view the brutalist concrete jungles with a new vision. The work questions the aesthetic judgments of beauty and ugliness.
