Pictura Gallery

Simon Martin leans into the tension of transformation, and the desire to hold onto what is good from the past, while enduring upheavals of change. Layers of the old town of Argleton are tenderly offered as new development encroaches. An idyllic field of flowers leaves a dreamlike impression in greyscale. But modernity is just over the fence, streetlights and cars blazing up the dark. The town may soon be swallowed into the non-specificity of new development.

The youth are perhaps analogous to the town, on the verge of change. Something happens in the image of the boy with his eyes closed. The portraits tip the viewer inward, and the landscapes no longer feel like exteriors, but like pictures of the inner world.

There is a process for recalling information by constructing something called a “memory palace.” This is a place you build in your imagination, using locations within it to ‘deposit’ things you wish to remember. In order to retrieve the memories, you walk through the palace to the spot where the recollection has been stored. As Martin considers a town on the verge of change, I imagine this series as a kind of memory palace he has constructed for himself– a place to hold and preserve a version of the town in the quiet stillness of his mind.

Simon Martin’s series was one of the finalists we selected while jurying this year’s Life Framer Series Award. Full post on #CuriousPhotoBlog. (Link in bio)

@life_framer @simonmartin.ph