home
About the images
Recent work
Monument as Metaphor
Petrol Stations
Woodhall Spa
Breedon Water
Summer 2010
contact
home
Quiet - VoiceHaving trained as an engineer at Rolls-Royce in Derby in the late sixties I saw the light and changed direction and studied photography at Nottingham Trent Polytechnic under the tuition of Paul Hill, Tom Cooper and John Blakemore. After graduation, I moved to London, worked as an assistant photographer, then setting up my own studio in 1978. After fourteen successful years as an advertising photographer working from my studio in Battersea and photographing every conceivable subject from stuffed mice to aeroplanes , I re-located back to Nottingham, continuing to work for both local and London based clients. Having always combined professional practice with education, firstly as a guest speaker and then teaching part-time at a variety of institutions, I moved into full-time education in 1997.As part of my on-going professional development, in 2006 I gained an MA in Photography at De Montfort University under the tuition of Professor Paul Hill.I am now trying to combine my role in education with personal practice.
About the images
Monument as Metaphor
Petrol Stations
Woodhall Spa
Breedon Water
The original concept for this piece of work has been with me for many years but never resolved. I was first drawn to thinking about public statuary after reading an article by Tom Lubbock in the Arts section of the Guardian newspaper back in November 1984. In the article Lubbock questioned the whole point of public statuary, claiming that London was strewn with mediocre artefacts crippled by the need not to offend. These sculptures technically works of art appear to make a minimal claim on our attention. So many years after their unveiling what is their point. Are they simply an embellishment to a public space or are they not to be a focus at all but to be carefully avoided, stepped around, looked away from?
Woodhall Spa projectWoodhall Spa is a large village in Lincolnshire that has the feel of an Edwardian seaside town without the sea! We spend many a happy weekend there in our motorhome and I have begun to try to record some of the aspects and features that interest me whilst avoiding the tourist board clichés.
Petrol stations are such a mundane feature of everyday life that it is easy to overlook the impact they have made on the British urban landscape. The motorcar is now insidiously an integral part of our western consumer society. We only look for a petrol station when we need to refuel but no one looks at a petrol station, unless it has been abandoned and neglected.I had long been fascinated with the piece Twentysix Gasoline Stations by Ed Ruscha - without it must be admitted, truly understanding either the concept or context nor have a understanding of the depth and breadth of his work.This seemed to direct me towards the perfect choice of subject matter. I would photograph a series of empty petrol stations paying homage to Twentysix Gasoline Stations. My original intention was to produce a piece of serious work that poked fun at the original or was ironical a pastiche. This seemed to me to be in keeping with the Post Modernist tradition in which the meaning of any image seemed to be determined only by reference to other images or signs that was inherently understood by the viewer or audience.Having set out to ironically confront contemporary art practice through making photographs of empty petrol stations, I have come to realize that these deadpan images have an aesthetic value and validity of their own and demonstrate the act of photographic seeing.I have deliberately produced understated photographs, composed with a neutral photographic stance and precise in their attention to detail. They are revealed as empty spaces animated only by the intensity of our gaze. These now vandalized and perhaps irreparable landscapes are symbolic of what we cannot see; the steady degradation of our environment. My hope is that when you (the viewer) come upon the objects in real life that you will see them in the light of the (art) work thus created. I do not pretend to have answers, but present evidence, which then suggest the questions the viewer might ask.
Recent work
Salisbury 2010
Monument as Metaphor
1 Queen Victoria.jpg
2 Sir Jukes Clifton.jpg
3 Fergus .jpg
4 Duke of Rutland.jpg
5 John Biggs.jpg
6 Rev Robert Hall.jpg
7 Ebenezer.jpg
8 Edward VII sheffield.jpg
9 Prince Albert_1.jpg
10 Gladstone.jpg
11 St Johns 1.jpg
12 St Johns 2.jpg
13 St Johns 3.jpg
14 Queen Victoria.jpg
15 Edward VII Liverpool v1.jpg
Petrol Stations
1 City.jpg
2 Clifton .jpg
3 Colwick.jpg
4 Radcliffe Road.jpg
5 Trent Bridge.jpg
6 Wilford Hill.jpg
7 Basford.jpg
8 Derby Road.jpg
9 Dunkirk.jpg
Woodhall Spa
Cottage at sunset .jpg
Garage.jpg
Graveyard 1 copy.jpg
Chicken farm 1.jpg
Wellington Memorial .jpg
Breedon Water
1 jpg.jpg
5.jpg
3 .jpg
4.jpg
6.jpg
8.jpg
9 Wind turbines.jpg
7.jpg
Summer 2010
Officer in dugout.jpg
Prepare to Fire!.jpg
Trench 1.jpg
Trench 3.jpg
Trench 2.jpg
contact
Stay featured or remove this badge.
© Trevor Melton All rights reserved
