Documentary Fiction Photography

Documentary Fiction Photography - UnEven Street

Anwastad Strydoedd
POA

steve coel

Anwastad Strydoedd
POA

steve coel

Anwastad Strydoedd
POA

steve coel

where have all the people gone?

an empty street. empty community.

no-one left to be nostalgic.

so it doesn't even exist as a memory anymore.

in the studio we talk about this a lot.

steve coel

Anwastad Strydoedd [ UnEven Street ]

Documentary Fiction Photography

An 11.59 Publication
Ingot Studios
Birmingham

Cais Archif

11.59

steve coel

11.59

steve coel

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steve coel

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steve coel

These pictures are examples from two of my previous extended

series of abstract urban picture projects.

I still like to keep several on rotation in the studio.

In large poster format [ AO ] they quite effectively work in a

wide range of unusual, even 'alternative', internal and

external environments.

Thanks for the request.

steve coel

An 11.59 Publication

arbrofion gweledol / lliw - 2015 / 2016

11.59 [ 2015 ]

steve coel

picture making = spontaneity + intuition + improvisation +

experimentation.

the street art manifesto plays a role here too.

steve coel

arbrofion gweledol / lliw - 2015 / 2016

Penarth [ Diptych - 2015 ]

steve coel

Penarth [ Diptych - 2015 ]

steve coel

two v. large pictures.

possibly the starting point for the current project.

steve coel

arbrofion gweledol / lliw - 2015 / 2016

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steve coel

feel busy.

i like that.

steve coel

arbrofion gweledol / lliw - 2015 / 2016

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steve coel

11.59

steve coel

'...recent studio work has become focused on tensions in my

images made by marks, smears and motifs that emerge

during the picture making process.

...these I then more often or not, remove and remake.'

[ interview: steve coel, 2016 ]

sometimes, it seems to me, i feel i am saving pictures rather than

creating them.

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steve coel

Ynys-Lochtyn : ogofau mor [ 2016 ]

Ynys - Lochtyn : ogofau mor [ 2016 ]

1 [ 2016 ]

steve coel

4 [ 2016 ]

steve coel

without quite knowing why, i sometimes lock onto an abstract idea

and just keep returning to it.

west wales can do that to you.

these really large sketches are part of a series that i'm using as

i prepare for an even larger picture.

steve coel

more is less [ 2016 ]

more is less [ 2016 ]

anwastad strydoedd [ illustration ]

steve coel

i'd guess that practically all the art seen by most people today

are reproductions of the original and that most of that is seen on-

line.

this question of encountering the original is not new. but seeing

the original through posters, books, postcards etc., asks questions

about the experience.

in my pictures i focus primarily on reproduction and an expectation

that my audience recognise this.

lavernock point / penarth [ 2016 ]

steve coel

so why do i often find myself becoming defensive when explaining

this to other artists?

the process of picture making has changed in the last few decades

and so has the audience.

the reproduction is now becoming the original picture because the

reproduction is now the original experience of the picture by the

audience.

steve coel

less is more. An 11.59 Publication

An 11.59 Publication

steve coel

less is more.

having spent a period creating pictures that i increasingly

felt uncomfortable with i felt i really needed to break away and

make pictures that were more spontaneous, intuitive, abstract,

even improvised.

struck by both the attitude and approach to creativity of Billy

Childish, it got me thinking.

so recently i've been trying to remove the possibility of a

narrative in my pictures. this is a very difficult thing to

achieve. in the studio we discussed the possibility of removing

titles to pictures and using numbers only.

but what about the sequence created?

episodic ideas?

even having a working title Stryd Fawr / Stryd Uchel [ 2016 ]

would inevitably, it was felt, conjure up a framework for

interpretation, no matter how the pictures were made.

so, like Billy Childish, i'll work within the limits i create,

not others.

steve coel

An 11.59 Publication

where have all the people gone?

Where have all the people gone?

An 11.59 Publication

Hapus Cwm

steve coel

i've previously created pictures focused on emptiness caused

by dense communities. pictures of fragile existence lived on the

edge.

often just a state of mind, recently i've also noted the marks

made by people who leave their communities across the globe.

so how is this emptiness possible?

is it ever possible to seek conclusions through pictures?

An 11.59 Publication

Anwastad Strydoedd

steve coel

for me, something seems to be very broken.

something is not quite right.

something needs fixing.

The pictures in the Stryd Fawr / Stryd Uchel Project [ 2016 ],

are all about the journey needed to find answers.

steve coel

An 11.59 Publication

Shapes - steve coel

An 11.59 Publication

hapus cwm

steve coel

' you can see how big this house is, but how big is the picture?'

steve coel

i sit in the studio surrounded by my addiction to creativity.

new pictures, old pictures, new music, old music, books, notes...

it all makes me think.

it forces me to ...do something new...everytime.

***

a cousin of mine has recorded a cd of ten new songs and monified

each song, one of which has gone viral.

70,000 and counting.

the other songs, almost zero.

what do people do with the track?

put it in a mix?

use it as a soundtrack?

my cousin won't know unless he starts receiving royalties i

suppose.

a similar thing is happening with e - short stories and flash

fiction, download a favourite, their use?...your guess.

reading? performance? recording?

and what of pictures posted on on-line galleries?

go ahead, download some that you like, and then?

are they used as teaching tools?

printed [ A0 / A1 ] to put up as decor?

reduced to A5 for use in promotions?

artists such as, for example, koen lybaert, joerg meister,

marilyn kirsch, beth fletcher are, along with many others,

creating what appears to me, to be challenging, consistently

thought provoking work.

and publishing on-line.

but what their spectators, audience, buyers do with it is, let's

be candid here, out of their control.

and this ultimately may be the whole point.

so when asked; how big is the picture you have posted on-line?

maybe the answer has to be: i don't know, that's really up to

you, not me.

steve coel