gerard hastings: modern british artist

information:

the overlooked (2006)

“I never saw an ugly thing in my life” (John Constable)

“The more an artist accepts nature as he finds it, the more
unexpected beauty he discovers in what he first despised” (John Ruskin)

The exhibition, “The Overlooked”, featured the work of three photographers: James Burnett, Kevin Newark and Gerard Hastings. Each engaged with their subject matter in an innovative way, requiring us to reconsider that which is usually overlooked or that which ordinarily fails to hold our attention. In diverse ways each photographer perceived neglected objects as valid aesthetic subjects and their work forces us to reconsider and look anew at what surrounds us. The commonplace object is invested with new significance and the discarded is transformed into something poetic.

Gerard Hastings’ photographs are concerned with marks on walls and explore the textures, graffiti, and graphic marks which coat the walls of eighteen locations from Italy to Morocco. His photographs and investigate what we often chose to ignore or fail to notice. The concepts of vandalism or defacement are reconsidered in his photographs and then transformed into something vital and elegant.

view the images

© 2007, Gerard Hastings