Final Three

 

Graham Holland

Graham Holland is an award winning lens based artist, who specializes in creating evocative images of the urban world. Personal development and experimentation have propelled Graham's success, where he co-ordinates commissions in advertising and wall based works with self initiated projects for exhibition. Graham's photographic and post production abilities have seen him work on assignment in Dubai, New York, Venice, Budapest, Rome and throughout the UK.

Graham studied BA Fine Art at the University of Central Lancashire and MA Photography & Urban Culture at Goldsmiths. Since completion of his degree he has gone on to exhibit in over seventy exhibitions and is collected throughout the UK, America and Europe. Exhibitions include, Holland and Sexty at the Woolff Gallery, London Calling, Holland and Sexty at Kingly Court, Life in the City, London Art Fair, Xposure, Metropolis, Art New York, Windows, Still, Art Palm Beach, Spirit of Place, Contemporary Camera, Reconstructed Places and Location Location Location. Clients include, Q Magazine, Allen & Overy, Starbucks, Honda, Transport for London, The London Studios(LWT), Carling, JD Wetherspoon, Pizza Express at Gatwick Airport, Bruntwoods(Official Partner Commonwealth Games), BBC, Shaftesbury plc, National Health Service and Pictons.

Graham's work has also been extensively featured in the TV programme Home on ITV and culture magazine Blueprint. Other media attention includes Broadcast, Property Week, Dream and A-N magazine.

http://www.gdhcityscapes.co.uk/index.html

Blackpool

Glasgow

Luton

Graham Holland's work is very interesting because it takes a different approach to the depiction of a cit. He doesn't sky away from the fact that city's are extremely crowded, busy, and sometimes unfriendly places, but instead creates pieces that not only show these qualities, but depict them in a positive light. I love how different his work is, and how he has used modern photo editing software to his advantage to create large scale vibrant photo montages of some of the biggest cities on the U.K.

Final Idea

For my final 3 composite pieces I have taken inspiration from Graham Holland's cityscapes (examples seen below). 


"In his world, the city isn't dark and brooding but light, buzzing and congested. He manages to capture both the optimism and the frustration of living in a metropolis where dreams can either be realised or crushed in an instant. He's an artist to watch for the future" as said by Grant Gibson - Editor of Blueprint where Hollands work is featured often.  




I did not want to copy the analogy he has behind his work, however, so I chose to investigate ans show how eventually the city will not be prominent over nature. Someday the buildings will wither and decay leaving nature still in it's all powerful place. It follows the thinking of whenever you put weed killer down, you kill part of the weed but it always finds another crack to pop up through. 

 

For my first piece I want to create a countryside-scape. This will be a depiction of times we live in now where nature is being trampled on my human technology, the invasion of pollution, and modern life. This piece will reflect where earth is at now.

My beach scape will also follow on from this idea, depicting a beach that’s normal beauty has been overtaken by, again, pollution from things such as oil leaks and objects disposed of into the sea. It will snow no actual human life, but it's presence will be felt through it's environmental impact. Other objects not usually associated with the lovely seaside image will be placed onto the beach to follow on from my first piece showing the intrusion onto the countryside.

I want my 'cityscape' to be the final piece. A reflection of Mother Nature taking back what has always been and always will be hers, depicting the city as overtaken and diminishing under natures power. No people are present again, because now human life itself has surrendered to natures will. This will lead onto my final cityscape where nature has once again become top dog.