William Curwen Artists Light Is Liquid
Promotional Piece For ‘Light is Liquid’ Show May 2021 - Oct 2021
When we moved from Liverpool thirteen years ago to live here in the North West Highlands, I was gradually struck by the realisation that my initial pictures of my new surroundings were influenced by a past life lived elsewhere - a typical incomer misconception. As a life long photographer, it took me quite a while before I gained an understanding of how the light and weather works here in our mountain climate. After two Highland winters, I got to work.
Social and physical isolation, something we have all recently gotten used to, has slowly led me to understand that what we see with our eyes is not necessarily what is actually out there. In fact, we live in a consensual reality based upon the sum of our shared illusions we often call the ‘human condition’.
I became intrigued by this perceptual mismatch, and began to explore the possibilities of recording light - not with a conventional optical glass lens, as such - but with a simple pinhole camera. Briefly, the pinhole allows diffracted light to pass through itself without expressing an opinion upon its subject matter. It is neither in focus, nor out of focus, neither sharp or unsharp, and the way the faculty of sight processes such resultant imagery is nothing short of a miracle at how such a seemingly still image suddenly becomes animated with a life of its own; thus - ‘Light is Liquid’ - the title of the show.
Over time, I have gradually became convinced that there is a hidden world all around us - right here beneath and beyond the fingertips of our perceptions. This is what my first ever solo show is all about; represented by very large pieces of work fashioned in the form of a matrix of printed tiles made from thousands of snippets of diffracted light, all stitched together inside a computer to create what I call ‘optical paintings’.
I see this show as a socially inclusive body of work through how it seems to openly talk to the inner child of all ages. I would like to invite one and all to come together and celebrate my personal interpretation of the uniquely beautiful, mysterious, often miraculous landscape we live in and share between us.