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The Black Cuillin and Marsco 'Impression from Sgurr Na Stri'

Artist: Boyd, Alex · b. 1984

The Black Cuillin and Marsco 'Impression from Sgurr Na Stri'

Image created using the tin type process and a large antique field camera. In each location the artist set up a tent and worked with the chemicals…

Image created using the tin type process and a large antique field camera. In each location the artist set up a tent and worked with the chemicals on-site. An image is created in hours not minutes (Each image takes 15 minutes to make, but the set-up is much longer). The resulting images are scans of wet plate collodion printed positive images that are digitally manipulated and then finally printed as archival c-type prints. The works were printed with a very hard contrast, in opposition to the wide tonal range generally practiced and achievable with the collodion process, exploring a more graphic aesthetic, mimicking poster & illustration design. The artist wanted to explore ideas of phenomenology and Genus Loci (Spirit of place) – i.e the sense of being in a particular place. For this reason he sat and took in each view and then turned his back and drew the scene from memory. He then took the tin type photograph and drawing back to his studio and manipulated the photograph to the format of the drawing. In recreating Victorian photographic process, the artist also seeks to explore the idealised notions of Scotland and its landscape that burgeoned in the Victorian era. The reason he chose Storr was its romantic Victorian associations, and misrepresentation from its place in Gaelic culture.

In this work the artist chose a viewing location from above Loch Coruisk as it had been described by Walter Scott after he visited it in 1814:
“Rarely human eye has known
A scene so stern as that dread lake,
With its dark ledge of barren stone...”

Artist was in residence at Sabhal Mor Ostaig in 2013 as part of RSA Residencies for Scotland. He has been working on a project for circa 2 years of mapping the edges of the Celtic world. His plan is to photograph iconic images the length of Scotland’s & Ireland’s West coasts.

For more information see notes from discussion between artist and RSA Collections Curator, Sandy Wood in Gifts, Bequests, Offers folder on curator’s network drive and on file in ‘Acquisitions: Photography’

http://www.alexboyd.co.uk